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The Caddo Parish Commission spent 2022 focused on the primary missions of the commission, namely: -Maintaining over 800 miles of parish roads, approximately 160 parish bridges and 1,200 acres of parks and recreational areas. -Tending to all parish-owned buildings, especially the Caddo Parish Courthouse, the Juvenile Services Complex and the Caddo Correctional Center. -Looking after the safety and well-being of our young people who are detained in juvenile detention and who may need care and rehabilitation. -And, lastly, ensuring the safety of our citizens by managing the populations of stray animals and disease-bearing mosquitos. These are the four things that the men and women of Team Caddo do all day and every day, and they do these things well. They do them efficiently, effectively and fairly.

The 10th Annual Battle of the Gumbo Gladiators Gumbo Cook-off will be held Saturday, March 11, at Festival Plaza in downtown Shreveport. Gates open at noon with awards taking place at 4 p.m. Admission is $1 (under 12 free), and gumbo tasting samples are only $2 each. Looking for a great team-building event for your employees? Sponsor a Gumbo Gladiators cooking team to bring everyone together to present your best pot of delicious gumbo. It takes a strong team to prepare gumbo samplings for over 5,000 attendees at this event. Each year, teams have fun participating as Gumbo Gladiators.

Centenary College’s Hurley School of Music is proud to welcome African American educator and tenor, Jonathan Walker-VanKuren, to campus to present his acclaimed solo voice recital, “Songs my mother taught me..,” on Wednesday, Feb. 1, at 4 p.m. in Anderson Auditorium. The all-spiritual recital kicks off Centenary’s Black History Month celebration for 2023 and is free and open to the public. “We are thrilled to have Mr. Jonathan Walker-VanKuren as our Convocation guest to kick off our Black History Month celebrations,” said Dr. Janani Sridhar, assistant professor of music at the Hurley School. “Jonathan has presented his all-spiritual recital across the US, and we are excited to have him on campus for this event. During his time here, Jonathan will also be working with our singers and instrumentalists on music by Black composers. It is rare that an entire recital is dedicated to the canon of spirituals, and I think that it will be real treat and a wonderful educational experience for those who plan to attend.” Hurley students, coached by Walker-VanKuren, will present two concerts celebrating Black History Month on Sunday, Feb. 5, at 3 p.m. at Holy Cross Episcopal Church, and Monday, Feb. 6, at 12 p.m. at Centenary’s Anderson Auditorium. These concerts are presented in conjunction with Shreveport’s Carrefour Collaborative Music Project. Walker-VanKuren is assistant professor of voice at Lebanon Valley College in Pennsylvania and maintains an active performing and teaching schedule around the United States. He is a versatile performer whose repertoire includes jazz, musical theatre, art song, and opera. Most recently, he has performed as Thamar in Opera Southwest’s revival production of 'Ali Baba' as well as the Witch ('Hansel and Gretel'), Don Jose ('La tragédie de Carmen'), Fenton ('Falstaff'), Nelson ('Porgy and Bess'), and Beppe ('Il Pagliacci'). Walker-VanKuren’s students have completed graduate study at institutions such as Texas A&M, Michigan State University, and Belmont University before pursuing careers in musical theatre, opera, and popular music in the recording industry.

Public transit in Shreveport and Bossier City has grown in recent years. For the past year and continuing through 2023, SporTran, the city’s public transit service, is offering free rides to all passengers. Bus routes have improved. And the service will soon have a new intermodal resource center.

Chief Administrative Officer: $165,000-$180,000 Annual Salary, Opening: 1/27/23-2/27/23 Shreveport's Chief Administrative Officer directs the day-to-day operations of city government and serves as a vital part of the mayor’s administration. The Chief Administrative Officer is responsible for leading and supervising the heads of the departments of human resources, finance, public assembly and recreation, public works, property standards, community development, water and sewerage, and transit.

Dear Citizens of Bossier City, On Tuesday, Jan. 10, the City Council introduced an ordinance to cut funding to SporTran by $400,000. While I am open to renegotiating this contract that has been in place since the mid-1970s, I do not agree with the timing of this decision as we are less than one month into the current year’s budget. I do not oppose re-evaluating our annual appropriation to SporTran, but it should be done during budget negotiations for the 2024 operating budget, not less than two months after this year’s budget was adopted.

Every since she was a little girl, Shreveport native and Atlanta-based multi-threat Adreana had people like her mother encourage a God-given ability that ultimately cultivated into a stunning talent!

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