Home Care In Newllano, LA

NATCHITOCHES — Several Southwest Louisiana students were among the 636 graduates recognized recently by Northwestern State University for fall graduation ceremonies. They are:

Anacoco – Jennifer Pajinag, Associate of Science in Nursing; Sherrie Martin, Associate of General Studies; Cameron Endris, Bachelor of General Studies; Madelyn Phillips, Magen Runnels, Bachelor of Science; Meghan Smith, Master of Arts in Teaching;

DeQuincy – Jacob Robertson, Bachelor of Science;

DeRidder – Ravel Wiswell, Associate of Science in Nursing; Hallie Kay, Bachelor of Arts; Kiamber Davis, Dustin Lauderback, Rebecca Santos, Bachelor of General Studies; Lane Armer, Alyssa Young, Bachelor of Science; Hayley Richard, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Elton – Kayla Bellard, Master of Arts;

Fort Polk – Sheila Tabonares, BriAnn White, Associate of Science in Nursing; LeAnne Kimray, Christina Raiden, Associate of General Studies; Hillary Kitche, Chelisse Rosario, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Jennings – Mallory Martinez, Ethan Smith, Bachelor of Science;

Lake Charles – Celena Avery, Bachelor of Applied Science; Lauren Jackson, Bachelor of General Studies; Faith Durousseau, Derek Field, Brady Pierce, Bachelor of Science;

Leesville – Natalie Armand, James Maricle, Lauren Partridge, Associate of General Studies; Trevor Peters, Bachelor of Arts; Shannon Goody, Cleophus Graves, Lauren Partridge, Bachelor of General Studies; Haley Dowden, Layken Nash, Jessica Tebbetts, Donna Yates, Bachelor of Science; Katlyn Butler, Rachel Smith, Joan Sporer, Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Marlee Davis, Master of Arts;

New Llano – Angel Donegan, Associate of Science in Nursing; Johnette Jansen, Associate of General Studies;

Oakdale – Victoria Ballard, Anna Doyle Associate of Science in Nursing;

Oberlin – Kaitlyn Fontenot, Bachelor of Science in Nursing; Jolie Dubriel, Master of Arts;

Pitkin – Heather Horton, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Rosepine – Joseph Vander, Bachelor of Science;

Starks – Sara Hyatt, Bachelor of Science;

Sulphur – Andrina Ferguson, Bachelor of Fine Arts;

Welsh – Arteria Harmon, Bachelor of Science.

Local summer graduates also recognized include:

Anacoco – Molly Brown, Dani Carver, Mallory Cooley, Isabella McCall, Associate of General Studies; Katie Truax, Bachelor of Science, Evan Hodge, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

DeRidder – Tiana Myers, Jaymee Thrasher, Associate of General Studies; Heather Daniels, Doctor of Nursing Practice;

Fort Polk – James Rodgers, Associate of General Studies, Cassandra Bailey, Bachelor of Arts; LeAnne Kimray, Hannah McGrew, Bachelor of Science in Nursing;

Hornbeck – Jay LaTour, Associate of Science;

Jennings – Mekayla Jenkins, Associate of General Studies;

Lake Charles – Haleigh Gates, Associate Degree, Bachelor of Science; Max Collette, Abigail Huddleston, Associate of General Studies; Jeremiah Juneau, Michael Milich, Bachelor of Science;

Leesville – Brianna Billiot, Skye Buentello, Matthew Christensen, Jacqueline Cook, Destinee Erwin, Jordan Jenkins, Brittany Lewis, Erik Lopez, Dana Tatum, Whitney Tipton, Audrey Weng, Lindsay Wilkerson, Trinity Yates, Associate of General Studies; David Santos, Bachelor of Science;

New Llano – Nicole Naral, Bachelor of Science;

Oakdale – Alyssa Sumbler, Master of Arts in Teaching;

Oberlin – Reagan Isman, Master of Arts in Teaching;

Rosepine – Pauline Burnsed, Master of Arts in Teaching;

Sulphur – Brandon Turner, Associate of General Studies.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — As more Chinese money flows into Mexico, the United States and Mexico on Thursday agreed to monitor foreign investments and regularly share information about the screening process.

The U.S. is becoming “more deeply integrated with Mexico,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at a news conference in Mexico City. “We want to see further deepening of our economic relationship with respect to our supply chains, supply chain resilience, and we think it’s important to be somewhat more coordinated than we have been when it comes to investment screening.”

The U.S. wants to prevent Chinese purchases of sensitive American technology that could be accessed through other U.S. trading partners. The U.S.-Mexico agreement may help achieve that goal.

“Our focus in talking to Mexico is not just China-focused. It is the general belief that it is important to make sure there are not national security concerns that are implicated in any foreign investments,” Yellen said.

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“This engagement is further evidence of the close partnership between our two countries, not only on matters of trade but also on critical issues of national security,” she said.

The U.S. is Mexico’s top trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching more than $850 billion in 2022. China has increased investments in Mexican companies in the past few years and is the fastest-growing source of foreign investment in Mexico.

The U.S. Treasury Department said the new agreement addresses “national security risks that can arise from certain foreign investment, particularly in certain technologies, critical infrastructure, and sensitive data.”

For Mexico, the agreement opens opportunities to negotiate reduced costs in remittances, one of the country’s primary sources of income, said Mexican Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O. Yellen said it would benefit both countries to reduce the cost of remittances — money sent by foreign workers back to their home country — across the border.

“We’re committed to working to see if we can accomplish that,” she said.

Mexico will receive a record of more than $64 billion in remittances in 2023, an increase of almost 10% compared with the previous year. Of that, 96% would come from the United States and it would represent almost 4% of Mexico’s GDP.

Ramírez de la O said Mexico recognizes that it “needed to update” its methods for investment analysis and would prioritize the lithium sector, since Mexico considers that an area of national security interest.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters that “we don’t ask countries to choose between the United States and China when it comes to economic opportunities or investment.”

He said the U.S. is interested in providing economic “alternatives to some of the less transparent, less reliable, high interest loans that other nations around the world seem to be willing to proffer. But again, every nation has to decide for itself.”

The Biden administration acted to ban the exports of advanced computer chips to China last year. In August, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to regulate high-tech U.S.-based investments going toward China. Washington said that move was targeted but also reflected an intensifying competition between the world’s two biggest economic powers.

Biden and China’s president, Xi Jinping, met in November and pledged to stabilize their relationship as they showcased modest agreements to combat illegal fentanyl and reestablish military communications. Deep differences on economic competition and global security threats remain.

Earlier during her trip to Mexico, Yellen promoted her agency’s new strike force to help combat illicit fentanyl trafficking as the U.S. and China step up efforts to stop the movement of the powerful opioid and drug-making materials into the United States.

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Hussein reported from Washington.

Comanche, explorers, military, others followed La Pista de Agua Viva

EDITOR'S NOTE: "Caprock Chronicles" is a series of short articles and essays that examine the life, people and historical places of our region's past. Paul Carlson, professor emeritus of history at Texas Tech, writes or edits each contribution in the weekly sequence. Today's essay is co-written by Sammie Simpson of Bailey County and Paul Carlson. It examines ancient, life-giving water routes across the Llano Estacado.

La Pista de Agua Viva, or the Trail of Living Water, was a Spanish phrase used from the 17th century to near the present-day to describe important water routes across the Llano Estacado of western Texas and eastern New Mexico.

Mainly the term refers to such water courses as:

¦ The Canadian River Valley.

¦ The Tierra Blanca Creek-Red River route through Palo Duro Canyon.

¦ Running Water Draw and White River through Blanco Canyon.

¦ Blackwater and Yellow House draws that merge in modern Lubbock as part of the Upper Brazos River system.

Less often, humans used additional trails to cross the flat, featureless Llano Estacado, especially in the region's deeper past.

Such routes included the upper Colorado River drainage system's Sulphur Draw and Beals Creek with its Sulphur Springs, Mackenzie, Seminole and Monument draws.

Sulphur Springs and Seminole draws are prominent cuts in the Llano. And as late as the second half of the 19th century, American Indians, soldiers and others followed them and could find water by digging into the draws' bottoms.

For early Spanish and American travelers, the northern trails represented significant routes. Water, of course, and its availability were the keys to such use. The draws normally provided living water or cut close to permanent sources.

Plus playa lakes, the large circular depressions that often contained water, could be found in some abundance toward the north.

American Indians used La Pista de Agua Viva - from well before Spanish explorers appeared. Apaches were using such water courses, especially in the southern sections, until the mid- to late-19th century. As they entered the region in the 18th century, Comanches followed well-worn trails through the high tableland.

After a 1786 treaty between Comanches and Spaniards, comancheros (traders from New Mexico villages) and ciboleros (bison hunters) followed the familiar northern routes from New Mexico onto and across the Llano Estacado.

Comanchero trading sites existed in most of the canyons on the eastern side of the Llano. The colorful traders also maintained such sites in Casas Amarillas, along Yellow House Draw, and near Muchaque Peak on the divide between the Colorado and Brazos rivers in modern Garza County.

Comancheros continued to ply their trade along routes of La Pista de Agua Viva until well after Comanches, Cheyennes, and Kiowas moved onto reservations and began receiving goods from the federal government.

But Spanish explorers had followed La Pista de Agua Viva long before comancheros or ciboleros. Francisco Coronado in 1541 was the first when he crossed from New Mexico to Blanco Canyon.

Some scholars suggest that Spanish Christian missionaries in the 1630s and afterward crossed the Llano along one of the water courses to administer spiritual needs to Jumano groups in the modern Ballinger-San Angelo-Menard area.

With greater certainty, Spanish military officers Jose Mares in 1787-88 and an aging Francisco Amangual in 1808 used La Pista de Agua Viva as they searched for shorter routes between San Antonio and Santa Fe.

Americans likewise followed La Pista de Agua Viva when they hazarded a crossing of the High Plains. Such crossings included the 1841 Texan-Santa Fe Expedition, an ill-fated effort to establish the jurisdiction of Texas over eastern New Mexico.

Capt. Randolph B. Marcy of the U.S. Army crossed and re-crossed the Llano Estacado along different routes in 1849, and in 1852 he examined the headstreams of the Red River. In 1856, he explored the upper Brazos River through modern Lubbock.

In 1855, Capt. John Pope, later to win fame in the Civil War, visited the Llano in its southern reaches, and Army Col. Ranald Mackenzie in 1872 crossed the northern portions to Forts Sumner and Bascom in New Mexico.

Such activity suggests that routes of La Pista de Agua Viva were busy.

In 1832, for example, Bill Williams, an ornery and grizzled old mountain man, and Albert Pike, an adventure-loving Yankee who during the Civil War became a Confederate diplomat, led a party of 45 fur trappers eastward from New Mexico down Blackwater Draw and Canyon del Rescate (Ransom Canyon) to the rolling plains below the Llano Estacado.

They had little success in finding beaver dams, but the upper Blackwater route they followed spread some 14 horse trails wide.

Clearly, routes of La Pista de Agua Viva provided water necessary for traversing the grass-dominated, but often what seemed a desert-like, Llano Estacado. Over time, some of the trails became wide and well marked.

La Pista de Agua Viva, as its name implies, was for centuries an indispensable trail of living water.

In 1943, Phyllis Carper was just getting out of high school. Everyone she knew was going off to war, and she wanted to do her part.

"I knew that I could do things with my hands. I was a good tactile person. So they said 'we'll send you to be a riveter' and I said 'a riveter? Oh I'd love to do that!'"

For two years Phyllis welded copper boxes used on Norden bombsights--a device used for daytime attacks.

"And I thought I'm helping the war effort and I thought that was wonderful!"

After helping at home during World War II, this Rosie the Riveter would also serve abroad. Through the Nurse Cadet Corp program, Phyllis commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the Army in 1950. She spent 3 years as a triage nurse stationed in Japan during the Korean War, receiving patients directly from Korea by the plane loads.

"They'd be in their dirty uniforms, all beat up. They were scared to death, you know, they were going home--they wanted to go home but they didn't want to go home broken and you had to tell them, you're going to be okay, your family is going to want to see you no matter what and we'd send them off to San Francisco."

Phyllis recalls one of her first assignments, overseeing a frost bite ward of some 200 G.I.s

"These poor kids would be there with these fingers and appendages that had been frozen and they were thawing and they would be in pain and they would be crying. A lot of them would have nightmares and you'd go up and talk to them soothe them and then you'd tell them to 'buck up!' punch them on the shoulder and show them 'you can get through this, kid!' and they would."

Phyllis says it was an often traumatic experience, but one she'll always cherish.

"I had always told my mother when I was in high school that I wanted to go around the world. I didn't make it around the world but I made it halfway that way and half way that way!"

Earlier this month Phyllis was on an honor flight to D.C. where she spent 3 days with a group of Korean War veterans. She says she was the only woman of 22. Originally from the Midwest, Carper came to Vernon Parish when her husband retired after 33 years in the Army. She also writes for the American Rosie the Riveter Association.

Savage Fork (31.0321348 N, -93.3534996 W) is a Postbellum Period crossroad community located at the intersection of Cooper Church and Savage Fork Roads. More properly called Elmwood, the name Savage Fork came as a result of the fearless and colorful activities of the younger citizens. The crossroad was occupied by a hardware store owned by William Fred Craft (LA 1859 – LA 1925), a church, and a trainstop.

The first page in Savage Fork's history was in 1847 when an east-west trace cut through the community connecting Huddleston with Burr Ferry. The next page was in 1906 or shortly later when the Gulf and Sabine Railroad built a line through the community connecting Stables (New Llano) to Stables Junction. The railroad met the Neame, Carson, and Southern Railroad between Neame and Camp Baker.

Vernon Parish's earliest homestead was in Savage Fork in 1836 by Henry Jackson (de 1797 – LA 1856) from Germany. Other families that homesteaded in the community were Cooper, Craft, Cryer, Stephens, Wilson, and Williams.

In the community's beginning it did not have a post office. Mail was delivered to Nathaniel S. Williams' (TN 1833 – LA 1903) mill on Bayou Zourie. Eventually, Savage Fork received mail delivered to Fred's store at the crossroad from Boyce by post rider John Bartlett (LA 1867 – LA 1952) twice a week.

Before Vernon Parish was created students in the community went to Hunts Springs School which was created in 1850. In 1879 Elmwood received one of the largest schools in the parish with 57 students, 27 boys and 30 girls. Later in history the school's name was changed to Davis New School. By 1907 the only remaining Ward Four schools were Cooper, Hunt Springs, and Whiskachitto. Over the years the schools continued to open and close. In 1922 Cooper, Granniss, Whiskachitto, and Pickering were the only remaining schools. By 1930 Pickering remained with two schools, black and white, and Whiskachitto with one.

There were six recorded Antebellum Period churches in Vernon Parish. Enon Primitive Baptist Church was one of them, created in 1852 in Hunts Springs which was north of Cooper Cemetery. The church also served as one of Vernon Parish's first schools, called Hunts Springs School. In 1865 the church moved to Elmwood where it also served as a school again. Due to destruction of records by fires twice, Enon's history gets confusing. Possibly, there was a church split. In 1912 Burel J. Blackmon (LA 1884 – LA 1973) donate land for a new church south of Elmwood and in 1920 James I. Craft (MS 1854 – LA 1936) donated land for a new church west of Elmwood . The churches came back together in 1948 and moved to the intersection of Blackmon and Cooper Church Roads in 1953, where the community is called Elmwood today.

As with many communities in Vernon Parish, much of the land was purchased by speculators. In 1888 Charles Hackley (IN 1837 – MI 1905) purchased 4,258 acres and the partnership of Henry Lutcher (PA 1836 – OH 1912) and Bedell Moore (NJ 1840 – CA 1908) purchased 6,879 acres between 1888 and 1890. Minor speculator John L. Woods (VT 1821 – OH 1893) purchased eleven parcels. By 1890 over 48% of the land was bought by speculators.

Schley (31.226750 N, -93.427230 W) was a Postbellum Period Ward Two community established in 1899 at the present-day intersection of LA Hwy 111 and Camp Baker Road.

A post office was located there from 1899 to 1915 with Archibald "Archey" Farris (LA 1864 – LA 1949) as postmaster. Postmasters that followed were James Owens in 1900, ___ Addison in 1902, Nathaniel Lee in 1911, and John Newman in 1914.

Why did Schley exist? It first appeared on a 1913 map and last appeared on a 1933 map. By 1940 it was no longer on Vernon Parish maps. Because two railroads ended in the community, Schley was probably an end camp. A 1921 railroad map has Schley as an end-camp of the Gulf and Sabine River Railroad from Leesville. According to written records, the Neame, Carson, and Southern Railroad which ran from Neame to Camp Baker ended in the community.

Sea, (T1S, R11W, Sec. 6) which was also called Star Foray and Sherwood, was a turn of the century hamlet about two miles northwest of Evans, close to if not on the Sabine River. The hamlet was located on Evans Ferry Road, which is present-day Vernon Parish Road 93. The community was small, with a population of 45 in 1906.

Sea received a post office from 1899 to 1909. William T. Smith (MS 1865 – TX 1919) was first postmaster from 1899 to 1907. The second postmaster was his father, Rufus H. Smith (MS 1841 – LA 1922), who served from 1907 to 1909. Mail from Sea went to Evans.

Sea's name probably came from Rufus' nickname, Seabourn. The name Sherwood probably came from Rufus' father, Sherrod H. Smith (GA 1811 – LA 1887). The origin of the name Star Foray is not known.

The first homesteader in the Sea community was Archibald Thompson (Unk.) in 1846 followed by Eli Damrel (NC 1797 – LA 1859) in 1848. Other early families were Craft, Harvey, Jarrel/Jarrell, Loftin, and Perkins.

Because the township was primarily hardwood, carpetbaggers had little interest in the area. Lutcher and Moore purchased only forty acres in 1884 and 840 acres in 1890.

Sea was in Ward Three. When the parish was created thirteen schools serviced the ward, eleven white and two black. Sea was between Evans to the south and Burr Ferry to the north. Children in the township went to Lone Oak School. The school had 34 students, 22 males and 12 females. Adjacent schools were Midkiff and Eaves Schools to the east, Jane School to the west, McCurly School to the south, and Sabine and Pearl Creek Schools to the north. By 1907-08 all schools were closed except Echo, which was renamed Evans. By 1930-31 Evans School was the only remaining school with 207 students and eleven teachers.

There have been many attempts to build a railroad through present-day Vernon Parish before the 1898 Kansas City Southern. The first attempt was in 1852 with the charter of the New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western Railroad. Construction started in Algiers with plans to build to Opelousas then turn northwest through present-day Vernon Parish. In 1859 the company purchased land in section thirty of the township where the railroad would cross the Sabine River. After building 83 miles of track to Brashear, present-day Morgan City, construction ceased.

This article originally appeared on Beauregard Daily News: Visions of Vernon: Vernon Parish Communities, Savage Fork – Sea