Sam Fashho has been in the clothing and fashion industry – the rag trade – for most of his life. Clothes have given him a life, helped him raise his family, enabled him to own multiple businesses. Prior to the oil collapse of the 1980s that turned everything around, he owned five clothing stores on Texas Street.

For three-plus hours on Wednesday, April 4, a portion of downtown Shreveport will be filled with street performers and artists, food trucks and specials. Buildings will throw open their doors, businesses will be open late, rehabbed historic buildings will be open for tours, architecture will be discussed and sketched, history will take center stage.

The new Shreveport Aquarium, a place for marine life, education and inspiration has brought lift to the old Barnwell Center. It has become a popular event venue, and the aquarium restaurant, SALT, arguably has the best views in town.

HGTV fanatics will remember a show called “If Walls Could Talk” that focused on fun facts buried beneath the sheetrock of homes across the country. It was always interesting to see what weird things homeowners had unearthed and even more entertaining to hear the homeowners’ reactions to these bits of history.

On Sept. 14, 2016, the boards of two downtown history museums – the Spring Street Historical Museum, whose exhibits tell the history of Shreveport, and the Shreveport Water Works Museum, the city’s first water plant, opened in 1887 – were invited to a meeting with Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler.

A big part of my job is working with businesses and business-hopefuls, many of them small, a significant number, start up. The people behind them run the gamut of professional mid-lifers sporting suit and tie to casual millennials in skinny jeans and tees.

“Once in a Millennium Moon,” a giant mural created by 2,000 people, stands out on two sides of the AT&T building. When lit, the Neon Bridge is colorful and eye-catching, dominating online search image results when the word “Shreveport” is entered..

Nungesser is in the middle of the legislative maelstrom, heading departments that direct the state’s culture, art, recreation, state parks, several museums, archeology, French heritage, state tourism and historic preservation.