Each year, the Greater Shreveport Chamber’s Young Professional Initiative has highlighted 40 of our region’s most dynamic and accomplished young professionals who are engaged in our community as entrepreneurs, executives and managers in the public, private and non-profit sectors.

Erin Turner, for most of her life, decided not to get a flu shot. “I never got sick,” she says. That is, until 2014. “I got really sick. The flu got me and two of my children. It knocked me down for two weeks. I told myself, ‘never again.’” Since then, she and her four children have been getting vaccinated against influenza annually.

There are four commercial stations in the incubator that are fully equipped with ovens, refrigerators and everything you would expect in a commercial kitchen. The entrepreneurs who use the facility pay a nominal fee each month and book slots to reserve the facility’s use.

The 12-song collection paints the singer/ songwriter’s self-portrait as she journeyed from Shreveport to Los Angeles chasing her musical dreams. Along the way, Macleod romps through Americana with everything from a country ballad to greasy blues and even Southern gospel.

Shreve Memorial Library is partnering with three local authors to present a live virtual chat event on Thursday, Aug. 6. The “Ladies Night Author Chat” will feature authors Judy Christie, Julie Pennell and Liz Talley, each of whom has lived in Shreveport.

She was born in a prison town, “black-and-blue and close to death,” as described in her 2001 memoir “The Truth Is …” Her mother went into labor in the middle of the day, and nurses held her legs closed until a doctor arrived. “I was not allowed to enter the world as planned.

Growing up in the maelstrom of a performing family and with care from an even more famous family friend, Krauss, Ratcliff realized that his childhood in Cotton Valley, middle of nowhere Louisiana, was only step one in his destiny. Nashville was his goal.

How have families worked this temporary “normal” into their lives? And how do some unwind or find ways to enjoy quiet time when homes are bustling all day and being alone is rare? Several area moms have found their own ways to handle all of the new and old responsibilities and find time for self-care.