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BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA
M o n d ay, S e p t e M b e r 29, 2025
$2.00X
ELECTION 2025 19TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT JUDGE
Faith, service, expertise touted in race 4 candidates vie for vacated bench
BY MATT BRUCE | Staff writer STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Gift shop manager Melissa Sampson-Barbin is reflected through a model of a Native American burial where the body is surrounded by a person’s most beloved belongings at the Tunica-Biloxi Cultural and Educational Resources Center.
Restoration of dignity
Hundreds of Native American remains pulled from La. graves still not returned to tribes
Tribal historic preservation officer Earl Barbry Jr. points to an artifact at the Tunica-Biloxi Cultural and Educational Resources Center on Wednesday.
BY HALEY MILLER | Staff writer In 1968, a Louisiana prison guard unearthed over 100 skeletons and sacred objects at a grave site in West Feliciana Parish, exposing them to the light for the first time in centuries. He kept the items, precious pieces of handmade Tunica pottery and traded European goods. Those could be sold. He tossed the remains into the Mississippi River. Out of 1.5 tons of recovered materials from the grave robbing, “the human remains could fit into a shoebox,” said Earl Barbry Jr., the historic preservation officer for the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana. “The guy that desecrated the graves really didn’t find any monetary value, so he just discarded the remains.” There are more than 1,700 bodies and parts of bodies that, like the Tunica-Biloxi’s ancestors, were disturbed and disinterred by archaeologists, government officials and collectors in Louisiana across the 19th and 20th centuries. Many landed in the collections of universities, museums and government agencies. But over the past few decades, there has been growing recognition among archaeologists and the public that human remains buried by tribes should not be artifacts or subjects of scientific study, and must be returned to their descendants. The paradigm shift led to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
ä See DIGNITY, page 5A
Canadian boycotts hurting La. tourism Nungesser asks Trump to apologize for rhetoric BY JOANNA BROWN | Staff writer Every year, well over 100,000 Canadians cross the border on their way down to Louisiana to visit, eat, dance and enjoy this outpost of Francophone culture in the United States. Many of them come from the Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, where Cajun families trace their ancestry. This fall, Ray Trahan was expecting busloads of Maritime tourists to arrive for Le Grand Réveil Acadien, or Great Acadian Awakening, which takes place every five years and provides a weeklong deep dive into Acadian history, culture, food, music and art.
People dance at Festivals Acadiens et Créoles at Girard Park in Lafayette on Oct. 15, 2022. Following President Donald Trump’s tariffs and remarks about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state, Canadians have cancelled travel plans to the U.S. and Louisiana. STAFF FILE PHOTO By BRAD BOWIE
Early voting in Louisiana’s municipal elections kicked off this weekend and poll workers for one of East Baton Rouge Parish’s hotly contested races waved campaign signs near City Hall, urging motorists along Government Street to vote for their chosen candidates. Four hopefuls are vying Adebamiji to become the next judge in the capital city-based 19th Judicial District Court. Dele Adebamiji will appear on the ballot alongside fellow attorneys Vernon W. Thomas, Elzie Alford Jr. and Veronica “Vicky” Jones in a special Alford election. The primary will be Oct. 11, and if no candidate eclipses 50% of the votes, the top two votegetters advance to a Nov. 15 runoff. The hopefuls are campaigning in a subdistrict that state lawmakers Jones vastly enlarged earlier this year. After listening to hours of arguments and testimony during a Sept. 9 hearing inside the district courthouse, retired 1st Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jewel Welch denied a bid to revert to the old voting map for the Thomas upcoming election. The 1st Circuit affirmed Welch’s decision in a ruling Wednesday. The winner will finish the final 13 months
ä See RACE, page 4A
Longtime state senator dies at 84
Louis Lambert helped draft current state constitution BY TYLER BRIDGES | Staff writer Louis Lambert, who had a long and productive career in the state Senate and the Public Service Commission during the heyday of populist Democrats in Louisiana but who fell achingly short in the 1979 governor’s race, losing by only a handful of votes, died Saturday, according to the Rev. Rodney Wood, a family friend. Lambert died in Sorrento of liver cancer at age 84 after surviving three Lambert previous bouts of cancer. “I’m a fighter,” he said weeks earlier. “I’m a strong Roman Catholic. I put my faith in Christ.”
ä See LAMBERT, page 3A
ä See TOURISM, page 3A
WEATHER HIGH 92 LOW 67 PAGE 10C
Classified .....................6C Deaths .........................7A Nation-World................2A Comics-Puzzles .....3C-5C Living............................1C Opinion ........................8A Commentary ................9A Metro ...........................6A Sports ..........................1B
101ST yEAR, NO. 91