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It’s not so often that we get to write good news, because the bad stuff keeps us all so busy that there aren’t always enough hours in the day.
And so I gratefully accepted the invitation extended through American Legion Post 31 in Houma, extended to me by post board member, Lee Shaffer III, to attend the Teenager Of The Year Award held Saturday.
The honor is bestowed on the high school student who exemplifies qualities of leadership and community service, and the American Legion has been giving this out for 59 years, inclusive of this one. As Terrebonne Parish Superintendent of Schools Philip Martin noted during brief remarks he made, we hear too much about the bad things young people in the community do or are subjected to. This oasis of good will and good news balanced the scale a little bit.
So there in this nicely appointed, wood-paneled dining hall at the Legion were all 27 nominees, a diverse group of boys and girls, the boys in suits or sport-coats with ties and the girls in nice dresses. And there were the parents seated at the tables with them, eyes beaming with pride. The principals of the different schools, public and private, got to sit with some of them and of greatest importance got to give a speech, each one of them, extolling the virtues of each of their nominees. There were four nominees from each school.
You wouldn’t want to have the job of choosing who gets the award. The job is impossible.
William Laughlin Grace V, who ended up the winner, balances school, church and community service on a regular basis, while also investing a great amount of time in dramatic productions at Vandebilt, his school.
But there were the 26 others with equally impressive stories and histories.
Sasha Patterson of H.L. Bourgeois High excels in academics and also serves as president of the Terrebonne Parish Youth Advisory Council.
Amber Peltier, another HLB student, plays clarinet, is involved in various charitable activities and excels in English. Tessa Gautreaux of Covenant Christian Academy is an avid painter and a 12-year Girl Scout veteran. Nathaniel Kimble, another Covenant Christian student, has moved 12 times during his school career – literally – but has excelled academically and gives back to the community.
Jonathan Dufresne of Terrebonne High swims and reads and does other things, and is a leader among students.
Those are just a few of the profiles culled from the essays these students were asked to write about themselves; missions to Haiti, rebuilding local homes for local families, mentoring other young people, the good works went on and on and on to a point where I was exhausted just sitting there listening. I have enough trouble arranging my schedule to write this column, chase and write a few stories every week and maybe, if I remember to set the recorder, catch an episode a week of “Blue Bloods,” a personal guilty pleasure.
There was something else that became apparent to me during the dinner, which consisted of some awesome fried fish perfectly seasoned, which had to do with the people on the dais, or those who weren’t on the dais but gave brief speeches in praise of the students.
A judge, the chief executive of the parish, the schools superintendent and a school board member were among them. A lot of times at public events you hear the agendas getting pushed, the breast-beating, all of that.
This was not what occurred Saturday night.
Each speaker had specific messages for the students, messages directed at them totally, messages of encouragement and praise, congratulations and a few lessons learned. What this collection of adults proved, through their words and actions, was that this is a community that really does care about its kids. The proof of that particular recipe occupied 27 chairs in the American Legion hall.
The message that came out of the Teenager of the Year award banquet was a simple one. We have quite a collection of talented, young people. And we still have enough dedicated adults determined to embrace all that is good to keep them going.
That means everyone under that roof Saturday night, whether armed forces veterans, relatives of honorees, the public figures who came to share time and words, came away a winner somehow, perhaps even the likes of me. •
