I wish to express my thanks to R. Reese Fuller and The Independent for your acknowledgment of Acadiana’s strong showing in this year’s annual awards from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (“The INDsider: Lafayette rakes in Humanities honors,” Jan. 15). In any period of economic hardship, it is easy to overlook the subtler ways in which art and scholarship in the humanities enrich our lives, individually and as a community, and I applaud The Independent for its consistent support for this important value. As a recipient of the LEH’s 2009 Humanities Documentary Film of the Year Award, I am honored to be numbered in the company of my friends and fellow Acadiana humanists Barry Ancelet, Philip Gould, and Cathy Mills, as well as our mutual Friends of the Humanities of Lafayette.
By its nature, however, filmmaking is a collaborative medium, and I would like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions made to LPB’s Louisiana Story: The Reverse Angle by other Acadiana residents, including Drs. John Laudun, Ancelet, and Carl Brasseaux (each a consulting scholar on the project); Tika Laudun, the film’s director and my esteemed co-producer from St. Mary Parish; and, most especially, to J.C. Boudreaux — the iconic little boy in the 1948 Louisiana Story, and the seasoned central figure of our film. Along with his wife, Regina, J.C. Boudreaux continues to represent the enduring spirit and infinite adaptability of our native Acadiana people.
Please let your readers know that all of these, and many more, share equally in the honor of the LEH’s 2009 Humanities Documentary Film of the Year Award. Further, I encourage readers to support Louisiana’s Endowment for the Humanities: while the state budget-makers struggle to ensure that we can continue to make a living, an unswerving appreciation of the Humanities reminds us why that pursuit matters in the first place.