GARDEN DISTRICT G O O D W O O D • TA R A S PA N I S H T O W N C A P I TA L H E I G H T S LSU LAKES MELROSE PLACE BEAUREGARD TOWN
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W e d n e s d ay, M ay 28, 2025
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1GN
Jan Risher LONG STORY SHORT
‘We must be kind when we can’
PROVIDED PHOTOS
The near noon sun offered no slanting light. It was brash. It was bold. It was blinding. When I took my seat on the bench, I thought about a line from a Cher movie I never saw, but an old boyfriend told me about 34 years ago. He told me about a character in the movie “Mask” who talked about things that were a drag, listing “holes in my shoe, dust in my hair, no money in my pocket and the sun shining on my face.” I sat on the bench and reflected on what the character from the movie I never saw meant.
New Orleans Pelicans star C.J. McCollum, center, meets with the 2025 members of the McCollum Scholars program. All are graduating seniors at New Orleans high schools and each received $80,000 in scholarships.
Pelican Philanthropy Orleans-based nonprofit Col- Beyond’s website. He joined the Seniors get $80K in New lege Beyond. Each scholar re- Pelicans team in 2022. Hills, the Edna Karr student body $80,000 over four years scholarships from N.O. inceives last-dollar scholarships, de- president with a grade-point averspecifically to close the age above four points, will attend star C.J. McCollum signed financial aid gaps that remain the University of Southern Califor-
BY JOSEPH CRANNEY
Staff writer
Zayden Hills says he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up by the time he was 6 years old. A lawyer. He was a creative kid whose mom, a teacher, encouraged him to read and write. He loved “The Chronicles of Narnia” and thriller novels. He read Maya Angelou and wrote poems he performed at open mics when he was still in elementary school. But it was a workday visit to his uncle’s New Orleans law firm that really settled it. “I found being an attorney to be the most interesting thing when I was younger,” said Hills, now a senior at Edna Karr High School, about to pursue a career in the law. Hills is among 11 New Orleans high school seniors selected to this year’s class of McCollum Scholars, a program funded by New Orleans Pelicans star C.J. McCollum and his wife, Elise. McCollum Scholars launched last year in partnership with the
after grants, institutional aid, and other scholarships are applied. The scholarship includes access to one-on-one counseling, monthly workshops and college tours. “In a city where the narrative around New Orleans youth is too often shaped by deficit and limitation, the McCollum Scholars program stands as a powerful counterexample,” said Clara Baron-Hyppolite, College Beyond’s executive director. “It shows what young people are capable of when they are supported, seen, and no longer held back by financial barriers.” Baron-Hyppolite says that the scholarship is specifically intended to reduce students’ family contributions and eliminate the need for loans. Among the universities where this year’s class will attend: Vanderbilt University, Syracuse University, Providence College and Tulane University. “I want to provide students with the resources they need to think outside the box about what they can achieve in their lives,” McCollum said in a message on College
nia, where he’ll major in English, an education that will allow him to continue to read and write a lot, because after all: To be a good lawyer you have to be a good writer, Hills said. He had lots of options when it came to deciding where to go to college — USC, Amherst College in Massachusetts, Morgan State in Baltimore, Loyola University New Orleans or Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, McCollum’s alma mater. In making his choice, Hills went back to a feeling he had as a kid in New Orleans. A dream that he could be far away, somewhere at peace. California, he thought. “California, when I was younger, always seemed like an escape to me,” he said. “I always knew I wanted to go … I just didn’t know how.” The remaining 2025 McCollum Scholars are: n Keyria Billew, Livingston Collegiate Academy, will attend Tulane University on the Mayoral Scholarship. n Arsenio Bolds Jr., Edna Karr
ä See PELICAN, page 2G
New Orleans Pelicans star C.J. McCollum poses with 10 of the 11 members of the 2025 McCollum Scholars class.
STAFF PHOTO BY JAN RISHER
The view from a bench near the lake at Solomon Retreat Center in Loranger
Then I thought about so many other people who, like that old boyfriend, said things I’ve mostly forgotten — except for the strange snippets that stuck. Words, phrases and moments that still shape how I see the world — and ripple into the lives of others I’ve touched. I thought of Mrs. McLean, my high school junior English teacher, who in class one day off-handedly said, “If your ears are pierced, you should never leave your house without earrings.” In the more than 16,000 days since, I can count on one hand the times that I forgot to put on earrings to go wherever I was going. I thought of a caterer whose name I can’t remember. I met her in Reno, Nevada, in 1990. She quickly told me how to make a dish with Italian sausage, fresh basil, Roma tomatoes, whole cream, Parmesan cheese and penne pasta. I made it shortly thereafter and loved it. I’ve been making it ever since, and it is “the meal” my family loves most, though my husband might argue that that designation lies with his tacos. I thought of a Slovak woman I met on a bus in 1993 who helped me navigate a confusing bus transfer and ended up actually giving me a bus ticket when the snow started to fall. I protested that I couldn’t accept the bus ticket. Her English was broken, but somehow she said one of the most poetic sentences anyone has ever uttered to me. She said, “The world is small. We must be kind when we can. Take the ticket.” And so I did, and the sentence and moment profoundly changed the way I saw the world. Back to the reality of the present day, I looked at the notso-far-away horizon across the lake at Solomon Retreat Center and considered the fuzzy line between where I end and others begin — and how we all get meshed together in so many ways. The sun continued to shine as I listened to the songs of a Carolina wren, a persistent tufted titmouse and a blue jay. A perfect breeze came along and blew my hair in a way that I felt sure made me look like I was in a movie. If anyone else
ä See RISHER, page 2G