ADVOCATE THE
T H E A D V O C AT E.C O M
BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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T h u r s d ay, J u n e 26, 2025
CHAMPIONSHIP
CELEBRATION
LSU baseball team honored for eighth title
$2.00X
Some area teachers get pay boosts Iberville Parish highest paying district in the region BY CHARLES LUSSIER Staff writer
Starting pay for public school teachers in the Baton Rouge region continues to increase as several school districts have approved new pay raises and stipends. Four of the 12 school districts within the nineparish area have approved permanent teacher pay raises. They range from $1,200 more a year in West Feliciana Parish to “We really need a $4,000 raise in Iberville Parish. Ascension agreed to to make sure a $1,500 increase and Zachthat we stay ary has agreed to $2,000 competitive with more. Three districts acted our surrounding in the past week. districts, and Meanwhile, West Baton Rouge last week approved really, for us, a $1,200 one-time stipend we want to stay for current and prospecabove them.” tive employees and $600 for part-time employees. LEWIS VOIRON, Iberville Parish was alIberville ready the highest paying Parish schools district in the region and superintendent one of the highest paying in the state. It has distanced itself from the pack with a $4,000 pay raise that it approved in May. And a recently approved stipend is adding $2,000 to the pocketbooks of public educators and $1,000 to support workers across Louisiana. It’s the third year in a row that the state has stopped short of approving permanent pay raises for school employees, opting instead for this one-time payment.
ä See TEACHERS, page 4A
STAFF PHOTOS By MICHAEL JOHNSON
LSU outfielder Josh Pearson carries the championship trophy during player introductions at the national championship celebration on Wednesday at Alex Box Stadium.
Jay Johnson lauded by players, fans for team’s success BY KOKI RILEY Staff writer
LSU has become accustomed to winning national championships over the last half-decade and change. Football started the run of success, winning its fourth title in 2019. Women’s basketball won its first-ever national chamä LSU players pionship in 2023, followed by gymnastics in 2024, which go to work achieved the same feat. at Raising outdoor track won it Cane’s. PAGE 1B Men’s all in 2021. But no LSU program has better exemplified this recent run of success than LSU baseball, especially after the Tigers won their second national championship in three years on Sunday, defeating Coastal Carolina 5-3 in Game 2 of the College World Series final. “I definitely still think it’s a little bit of a blur.
Governor signs BREC legislation Board changes give cities in East Baton Rouge greater role
BY PATRICK SLOAN-TURNER
Staff writer
LSU head coach Jay Johnson thanks the fans during Wednesday’s
Gov. Jeff Landry has signed a bill that now gives Baker, Central, St. George and Zachary seats on the board of BREC, East Baton Rouge Parish’s parks and recreation system. The bill also establishes a requirement for the commission to submit an annual report on BREC’s finances. Rep. Lauren Ventrella, the Baton Rouge Republican who sponsored the bill, said that requirement stems from taxpayers’ frustrations surrounding “wasteful spending and excessive taxation.” “I, too, work for a living, and I’m just as frustrated as my neighbors with how much we’re taxed — especially by BREC — and how little
ä See CELEBRATION, page 5A championship celebration.
ä See BREC, page 4A
AG wants 5 death penalty cases reviewed, expedited Robert Miller in East Baton dants have been found guilty, but the pain and trauma of waiting for Murrill seeks clarity from state Supreme Court Rouge Parish. Miller was convict- are challenging the constitutional- finality for decades.” n
BY MATTHEW ALBRIGHT and MEGHAN FRIEDMANN Staff writers
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill is asking the state Supreme Court to review and potentially expedite five death penalty cases, saying they have languished in the court system for too long and that her office needs clarity on conflicting lower court rulings. The defendants in those cases,
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all of whom have been convicted of murder, are: n Larry Roy in Rapides Parish. Roy, known as the “Cheneyville slasher,” was convicted of a double murder in a knife attack in 1994. Some of his victims are still alive. n Antoinette Frank in Orleans Parish. Frank, a former New Orleans police officer, was convicted in 1995 in a triple murder at the Kim Ahn Noodle House in New Orleans East.
ed in the 1997 murder, rape and armed robbery of his landlord at her home. n Marcus Reed in Caddo Parish. Reed was convicted of killing three brothers in 2010 after a burglary at his home. n David Bowie in East Baton Rouge Parish. Bowie was convicted in the murder of his friend in Scotlandville in 1996 after a night of gambling. All five cases are in the postconviction relief stage. The defen-
ity of their verdicts or sentences. “In these five cases — and many others — the offenders failed to move their cases for many years and sometimes decades,” Murrill wrote in a news re- Murrill lease Wednesday. “Meanwhile, victims’ family members are left with the fear that the conviction might be vacated and
Business ......................6A Commentary ................5B Nation-World ................2A Classified .....................6D Deaths .........................3B Opinion ........................4B Comics-Puzzles .....3D-5D Living............................1D Sports ..........................1C
Cecelia Kappel, an attorney for death row inmates, slammed Murrill’s news release and accused her office of attempting to stop defendants from having their claims heard. “Courts around the state have rejected the attorney general’s arguments, and their news release is meritless grandstanding,” she said. “The attorney general’s filings have nothing to do with
ä See EXPEDITED, page 4A
100TH yEAR, NO. 361