C’EST BON
Expect more than a new coat of paint on a run-down icon of Lafayette’s past. The Borden’s ice cream parlor at the corner of Johnston and Jefferson streets near downtown and the university has new ownership. The business was purchased from the UL Foundation by health club honcho Red Lerille and his daughter, Kackie. The foundation owned the lot and building. Kackie will operate the shop, and says she plans to spruce it up and keep it humming. The business will also keep the name Borden, a south Louisiana dairy company. The parlor has fallen into shabby disrepair over the last few decades, but the hot fudge sundaes and banana splits are still killer. Expect 48-year employee Ella Meaux to hang around, too.
PAS BON
KADN Fox 15 calls changes to its nightly newscast “more in keeping with how today’s audiences consume television news.” Not exactly change we can believe in. Last week, Fox News Louisiana, KADN’s 30-minute newscast, was replaced with Fox News Now, a five-minute burst of headlines along with a weather forecast, followed by “The Family Guy.” KADN also laid off its entire news team of two reporters, and other Fox stations in Louisiana owned by Lafayette-based Communications Corporation of America did the same. The Baton Rouge and Lafayette stations were part of a boiler plate approach to news: A single-anchor newscast produced in Baton Rouge was customized for KADN with locally generated reporting. But the approach left Fox News Louisiana bereft of personality; most reporters were what is known in broadcasting as “one-man bands” who shot their own video, hence audiences rarely saw reporters’ faces. The experiment failed to gain traction in the ratings, which generates ads and revenue.
COUILLON
It’s a safe bet this guy isn’t a rocket scientist, but he may have monopoly on meat headedness. Melvin Sylvester was handed a “Go Directly to Jail” card in New Iberia recently. According to KATC, witnesses spotted Sylvester trundling a dolly with a box on it along a street. Moments before, sheriff’s deputies had been notified by the manager of the Popeyes restaurant on Main Street that someone had broken into the chicken joint and made off with the safe. You guessed it, the box on Sylvester’s hand truck, according to the sheriff’s office, was the safe from the Popeyes. He was booked into the Iberia Parish Jail on burglary and couillon charges.