“Sugar. Fried foods. Sweets. Dr. Peppers. Cokes. All the bad stuff,” Smith remembers eating and drinking. “I worked in the oil field. We were taking customers out to eat all the time. You might eat fried chicken … even when I was a kid, go to grandma’s and eat bacon and fried stuff.

Shreveport’s Mus Gillum first got paid to play music at a church when he was 14 years old. “I felt like I was robbin’ somebody, because I was just doin’ what I love to do,” Gillum remembers. Now 33, he is still getting paid to sing and strum a guitar. “I’ve been on stage longer than I haven’t been,” Gillum said.

“The Maker of Dreams” — the name of SLT’s first production in 1922 — is also the name of a 12” x 12” embossed, foiled, hardcover coffee table pictorial. You will find some 400 pictures in it — taken during approximately 900 productions, paying tribute to the actors, actresses and directors who have displayed their talents over the years.

Boy, was he wrong. And Scott admits it. The feature-length film, which tells the story of five priests who sacrificed their lives to help comfort those who lived in Shreveport during the 1873 Yellow Fever Epidemic, has been named an Official Selection of the prestigious Cannes World Film Festival.

“It does not feel like Shreveport in the sense of the lighting, the gaming tables, the way the bar is set up, the food and the auction items,” Phillips said of the atmosphere surrounding the event. “It feels like you are in Las Vegas. … We want people to come in, disconnect and have a great time.

“As we got closer, we started rucking (hiking with a weighted pack) with our backpacks we were going to carry,” Colin said. “We put about 30 pounds of weight in them. I would ruck my neighborhood. I spent one Saturday morning going up and down Thrill Hill 30 times, which took about two hours.

"At that point in time, our organization was looking at making some very tough decisions about possible furloughs and layoffs (to the fair's year-round staff)," Giordano said. "We were in a real financial hardship. That spring fair turned it completely around.

Fourteen million dollars’ worth of additions and renovations to the Tinsley Athletic Complex, off Highway 80 East in Bossier, are almost finished (expected completion date Nov. 15). Already, 31 weekends in 2022 are booked with baseball and softball tournaments.