COURSEY • HARRELLS FERRY • MILLERVILLE • OLD JEFFERSON PA R K V I E W • S H E N A N D O A H • T I G E R B E N D • W H I T E O A K
ADVOCATE THE SOUTHEAST
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
|
W e d n e s d ay, J u ly 31, 2024
If you would no longer like to receive this free product, please email brtmc@ theadvocate.com.
1Gn
Danny Heitman AT RANDOM
In July, I’m looking for a clean slate a new year can offer As a cub reporter decades ago, I was surprised to learn that there can be more than one start of the year. I’d come to know the traditional calendar that starts in January and ends in December. That led to some confusion when I began covering local government, which connected me with a city clerk who mentioned starting her year in the middle of summer. Things got clearer as she gave me a primer on municipal finances. State and local governments, she explained, chart their work through fiscal years, which usually begin on July 1 and end on June 30. There are a few reasons why corporations and governments use fiscal years, but I was really more interested in something else. What got my attention was the idea that beginnings aren’t set in stone. We can create them as needed, renewing a sense of possibility long after New Year’s has passed. That thought returned to mind the other day as I made a cup of tea, getting a little inspiration in the bargain. Tea bags these days often have bright little proverbs printed at the end of the string, and mine said, quite simply, “We can always start again.” It was a nice sentiment, though I was having trouble believing in clean slates after reading the paper. Many of the headlines weren’t encouraging, and here at the midpoint of 2024, the year can already seem tired. Even so, I’ve been trying to think of this July as a kind of reset, a time to reconnect with important plans and maybe make some new ones. In that spirit, I’ve been revisiting some resolutions I made last January. Like many people, I often forget about my New Year’s resolutions by Mardi Gras. This year, I decided to bolster my chances of success by printing my resolutions in large type and pinning them to a bulletin board above my desk. The theory was that they would be too big to ignore, nudging me each day to do better. But after a couple of weeks, those resolutions became such a familiar fixture that they blended into the background of my life, like the patterned wallpaper in a hallway I’ve passed a hundred times without noticing. Here in July, I’m trying to refocus, and having the resolutions within arm’s reach has been helpful. There are 10 in all, and I’ll give myself credit
STAFF PHOTOS BY MICHAEL JOHNSON
Alumni of the Bengal and Y-Nauts swim teams gather for a reunion at the Kenilworth Pool Club on July 13.
‘So ‘S many came from so far’ An unlikely reunion 40 years later for the Bengals BY PAM BORDELON
T
Contributing writer
hough the LSU Bengals swim team dissolved decades ago, for a brief and shining moment, it lived again last weekend. The competition was fierce at the Kenilworth Pool Club on July 13, as former team members swam for glory for the first time in some 40 years. Back in the 1980s, the Bengals were a part of USA Swimming, the national governing body for the sport of swimming across the country. The Bengals were a force to be reckoned with on the local and state swim scene. Eventually, the team produced a string of exceptional swimmers, including swimmers who competed on the national level and an Olympic coach. Forty years later, amid trashtalking, good-natured ribbing and races on giant inflatable flamingos, members of the Bengals reunited and reminisced about their glory days — along with comments about aging joints that had clipped their “fly” wings. Directing the relays, which included a heat atop a large inflatable flamingo, duck and dinosaur, was former coach Rick Hartman, who
Burak Arnas lands on a flamingo pool tube as members of the Bengal and Y-Nauts swim teams have a fun relay race during the reunion. to this day swims competitively. And, while there was grumbling when he insisted on at least one lap being the butterfly, the participants dove in and did as the coach said. It was a reunion years in the making. Team member Chris Bryan, a professional event planner, finally succumbed to Robert Begg’s pleas and organized the three-day celebration of wins, friendships and memories.
The weekend started Friday with a tour of what used to be the Huey P. Long Pool, where the team swam until LSU built a new pool to host the 1983 International Special Olympics. The Bryan brothers admit they were hit with a rush of nostalgia when they did a walk-through a few days earlier. The celebration ended with a get-together at Tin
ä See REUNION, page 3G
ä See AT RANDOM, page 2G
Serving up gold
What is the connection between Louisiana and the 1936 Olympics?
founding location before goBeach volleyball the ing for gold at the Paris Olympics. “It smells so good in here,” fuduo works a Raising ture U.S. Olympian Kristen Nuss Orleans said repeatedly Cane’s shift ahead ofas New she and her teammate spent of Paris Olympics the morning behind the counter
BY MARGARET DELANEY Staff writer
Following the lead of the likes of LSU national champions, including the women’s basketball, baseball, gymnastics and football teams, this Louisiana-based beach volleyball duo headed to Raising Cane’s to work a shift at
at the chicken shop. Nuss and her partner, “sister, and best friend” Taryn Kloth met four years ago during the COVID pandemic. They had been LSU teammates, but Kloth went home to South Dakota once the pandemic restrictions went into place. Even so, the pair decided
ä See DUO, page 2G
BY ROBIN MILLER Staff writer
STAFF PHOTO BY MARGARET DELANEY
Taryn Kloth, left, and Kristen Nuss work the drive-thru at Raising Cane’s in Baton Rouge on the corner of Highland Road and East State Street.
He was 17 years old and had never traveled outside of Louisiana. Yet, there William Tennant Brown sat on an ocean liner bound for Berlin, his teammates by his side. The year was 1936, and Brown would be competing against the world in the shad-
ow of Adolf Hitler. One of his teammates, a young African American man named Jesse Owens, would win four gold medals. No medals came Brown’s way, but a place on LSU’s track team would follow, along with a career in public relations at Kaiser Aluminum.
ä See CURIOUS, page 2G