In the last several weeks, downtown Shreveport has announced the opening of four new restaurants and the re-opening of a favorite that had briefly closed. What gives? The restrictions of COVID-19 have been hard on eateries. First came mandates for curbside and delivery only, extensive PPE requirements and limited dine-in occupancy.

Maura Querbes Pugh is living proof that one bad apple doesn’t spoil the entire batch – or in the case of 2020, the entire year. Despite the pandemic and subsequential quarantine, Pugh made lemonade from lemons and shared them with Shreveport via her very first cookbook: “Covid Culinary Chronicles.

Semmie Buffin went to work for KSLA TV in 1974. In those days, the local CBS affiliate was locally owned by the people who had shepherded it onto the air in the early 1950s. Fast forward 46 years, and many things about the station were vastly different, but one thing remained constant: Semmie Buffin.

“As a young kid, you grow up watching The Masters or the (major tournaments), and if you have big dreams, you don’t really ever say, ‘I want to be the best college player.’ You say, ‘I want to be the best player in the world. I want to win majors. I want to be a professional golfer on the PGA Tour.

a good bet none of the 43 previous recipients of the Omar N. Bradley “Spirit of Independence” Award did not think what retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Joseph M. Cosumano Jr. thought when told he would be receiving this year’s award at the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl.

“I want to do it,” Andrade said. “I want to put my hands on it. I want people to enjoy it. When people call you to the table, and they say, “Thank you, that was amazing,” or they say, “Thank you, that reminded me of my Grandma in Italy,” I love that.

2020 has brought us so much to deal with. In January, as a counseling practice, we were already full. We were already dealing with a 200% increase in teen self-harm — a 19% increase in first-year college students being diagnosed with anxiety disorders and depression.

played with really struggle with their second career choice,” Hester said. “What do I want to do? It’s really not about the money part of it … It’s about having a purpose – something that drives you every single day. The last thing I wanted to do was sit at home and not have a career in mind, and just exist.

“My paintings don’t come from me – they come through me,” Couch, a Tibetan Buddhist, said. “The way I work is that I open myself up to the environment and the emotions I have. It’s just like breathing. You are breathing in the environment. That’s reflected in my interpretation of what that feeling is about.