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‘We’re truly there to serve’ STAFF PHOTOS By JAVIER GALLEGOS
Neal Mire takes a sip of his jambalaya broth during the Gonzales Jambalaya Festival at Lamar-Dixon Expo Center on Saturday.
Third-party agency handling minor crashes, incidents in St. George
BY CLAIRE GRUNEWALD Staff writer
If you get in a small fender bender in St. George city limits, chances are an agent in a neon yellow shirt driving a white truck and armed with only a clipboard will come to the scene. Rather than a sheriff’s deputy or a Louisiana State Police trooper, agents from a third-party company like Brennan Doggett are dispatched to minor car crashes in the city to handle accident reports that are sent to insurance companies. “Sometimes when we first got started, people were like, ‘So, is the deputy going to come out after?’” Doggett said. “I’m going to do the report like a police officer would.” Doggett works for On Scene Services, a private company contracted with the city of St. George since September. The city has a three-year contract with the company for $1.5 million a year. So far, OSS has eight
ä See AGENCY, page 5A
Danny Robert, right, stirs his pot of jambalaya while chatting with Mike Gonzales and Kurt Waguespack during the Gonzales Jambalaya Festival on Saturday.
Cooking began early Saturday morning as Gonzales expected to welcome at least 90 cooks in this year’s World Champion Jambalaya cook-off. The Gonzales Jambalaya Festival, in its 59th year, was originally envisioned as a way to show off Gonzales during the Memorial Day weekend. The first contest was held on the streets of downtown Gonzales. It’s now held at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center. See more photos, 1B Attendees line up to watch competitors cook jambalaya during the Gonzales Jambalaya Festival on Saturday.
STAFF PHOTO By JAVIER GALLEGOS
On Scene Services founder and CEO Ethan Cheramie, left, reads client surveys during a ride-along with field agent Brennan Doggett in St. George on Friday.
ELECTION 2026
Letlow is front-runner in Senate race, vote reveals Opponents undeterred as mixed outcomes predicted
BY TYLER BRIDGES Staff writer
Louisiana Catholics call Latin Mass a beloved ritual
There’s ritual and mystery and Popularity grows choreography, and in that, Franasaid, “there’s comfort.” amid controversy tovich “And I think people are lookfor a sense of comfort these of it dividing church ing days,” Franatovich, a 29-year-old
BY BOB WARREN
New Orleans real estate agent and longtime Roman Catholic, said Mass at the church. “A lot of When Wesley Franatovich set- people are searching for things tles into a church pew for the Lat- that ground them in a way — a in Mass at St. Patrick’s Church in lot of people see that in the Latin New Orleans, he feels a sense of ä See MASS, page 5A calm wash over him. Staff writer
WEATHER HIGH 76 LOW 69 PAGE 8B
ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO By GREGORIO BORGIA
Pope Leo XIV, left, presides over the funeral of late Cardinal Emil Paul Tscherrig in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on May 15.
Can anyone stop U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow from becoming Louisiana’s next senator? That’s the key question that has emerged in the days after Louisiana’s Senate primaries. Political experts say LetLetlow low, R-Baton Rouge, holds a dominant position after running first in the May 16 Republican primary with President Donald Trump’s powerful endorsement and eliminating Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, from the contest. But state Treasurer John Fleming Fleming, who finished a distant second in the GOP primary, is not conceding the race to Letlow.
Business ......................1E Deaths .........................3B Opinion ........................6B Classified ..................... 2F Living............................1D Nation-World................2A Commentary ................7B Metro ...........................1B Sports ..........................1C
ä See SENATE, page 6A
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