SOUTHERN FALLS TO N.C. CENTRAL 31-14 IN SEASON OPENER 3C
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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
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S u n d ay, au g u S t 24, 2025
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“In 10 years, you’re not going to recognize Richland Parish.”
AI BOOMTOWN
The massive Meta data center emerging in northeast Louisiana is igniting a gold rush of opportunity. It’s also changing a rural way of life.
‘People retire; dreams don’t’
66-year-old tuba player becomes LSU Tiger Band’s oldest member BY JOY HOLDEN Staff writer
STAFF PHOTOS By SOPHIA GERMER
The Meta project site in Holly Ridge will cover 2,250 acres, require 5,000 construction jobs and create up to 500 permanent ones. BY STEPHANIE RIEGEL Staff writer
RICHLAND PARISH — The S Mart in Bee Bayou has always done a brisk business. It’s the only convenience store for miles amid the corn and soybean fields that line the old two-lane La. 80 in rural northeast Louisiana, and the only place to get heaping to-go plates of fried chicken gizzards with mac and cheese. But everything suddenly changed this year — ever since Facebook parent company Meta broke ground on a $10 billion artificial intelligence data center in the middle of a cornfield in nearby Holly
can’t hire enough workers to staff the store’s shifts. “We’re so busy we don’t get a break,” Watson said as she boxed personal pizzas fresh out of the oven and stacked them in a warming case. “They start lining up before 6 a.m.” The boom isn’t confined to the S Mart. Across Richland Parish, where the Meta site is located, land speculators are buying up property, paying 20 or 30 times more than they The S Mart in Bee Bayou has seen sales triple from food, ice would have a year ago. Recreational vehicle and gas since Meta broke ground in Richland Parish. parks and “man camps” are Ridge. for food, ice, cigarettes and sprouting up in small towns Now the store is slammed. gas. Sales have more than tri- nearby to accommodate the Construction workers in neon pled. Store manager Ann Watsafety vests stream in nonstop son, 70, a Bee Bayou native, ä See BOOMTOWN, page 10A
The LSU Golden Band from Tiger Land welcomed its new members Thursday, and one of them was born in 1959 — tuba player Kent Broussard. Originally from LaPlace, the 66-year-old former accountant and vice president of Sazerac Co. played in the band at Riverside High School for four years and then for Southeastern Louisiana University for four years, graduating in 1980. But as an LSU Tiger fan, he always wondered what it would be like to march on the field in Death Valley. About five years ago, Broussard told his family that he would like to try out for tuba at LSU after he retired. They laughed. He was serious. They started cheering him on. “We were talking about planning for retirement when he said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking I might want to do something. I think I might go back to school and try out for the for the LSU band.’ And
ä See TUBA, page 8A
PROVIDED PHOTO
Kent Broussard practices in his living room for Tiger Band.
BR takes fentanyl fight to streets with opioid abatement funds BY AIDAN MCCAHILL
medication that can pull someone back from an opioid overdose, along with fentanyl testing strips, Fred Smith spends his Wednes- hygiene products and numbers for days cruising Baton Rouge with recovery hotlines. His first stop is a small Mid City a car trunk full of second chances. Inside are boxes of Narcan, a homeless camp, then the shelter Staff writer
WEATHER HIGH 94 LOW 71 PAGE 8B
at St. Vincent de Paul. By 11 a.m., temperatures are climbing past 90 degrees, and the line outside for the shelter’s free lunch is packed. “Anybody struggling with drug addiction? It’s free!” the 53-yearold says, beckoning people toward
the bundles in his car, dozens vanishing within minutes. “We’re trying to save lives! Spread the word!” At a nearby bus stop, Eric, a man waiting on the sweltering concrete, digs through the bag from Smith.
He holds up a box of Narcan. “I saved my cousin’s life with that,” he says. “He was in convulsions. He was just still, like dead. I said, ‘Shoot it up his nose!’ All you
ä See FENTANYL, page 6A
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................5B Opinion ........................6B Classified ..................... 1F Living............................1D Nation-World................2A Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
101ST yEAR, NO. 55
Are you Game Day Ready?
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