Mari Walker

Katrina Rivers Labouliere doesn’t feel like her life is particularly exceptional despite her years of advocacy work with the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community.  “I just feel like I am a catalyst for creating programs and making things happen and pulling together a team,” she says. “Team Blue, my team, they deserve the credit. They work tirelessly and trust every idea I come up with. I have an amazing team of passionate people.” Labouliere’s team is expanding in the Baton Rouge area with the creation of Blue Bridge Academy, a language immersion daycare and preschool for American Sign Language (ASL) and English that is scheduled to open later this year. The idea for the school was planted long ago. The oldest child of two Deaf parents, Labouliere’s first language is ASL, and she studied communication disorders in college.  “Early on in my career, working in education I saw the disparities of children with disabilities, but my main focus was children with hear...

Turning 14 this month, Maddie Wilson already has experience as an attorney through Teen Court of Greater Baton Rouge. The diversion program helps teen offenders stay out of the judicial system and lower rates of recidivism. Starting ninth grade at St. Joseph’s Academy, Maddie has been part of Teen Court since fifth grade and was the youngest volunteer attorney. “I prepare a line of questioning, get to know the defendant and work to get them a constructive sentence that will keep them on the right track,” Maddie says. A licensed attorney serves as the judge, and a jury of teens makes each ruling.  Maddie volunteers for other causes, including weekly service at an assisted living facility as well as hair donations, food drives and toy drives. She has also received many academic honors. “She’s never made a B in her life,” says Gina Wilson, Maddie’s mom. Maddie was recognized by the Duke TIP program and has received writing awards. As a St. George eighth grader, Maddi...

As Education and Community sections editor, I wrote pages 16-23 and page 28 of the August 2020 issue of Baton Rouge Parents magazine. See the web layout on the magazine's website .

The meme about Schrodinger’s virus speaks to me. We don’t know if we have COVID-19 at any given time, but we have to act as if we do while interacting with others to keep them safe. And we have to act as if we don’t have COVID-19 to remember to take steps to mitigate our own risk of becoming infected.  Without robust testing, it doesn’t seem like we can ever get the virus under control. Our area has seen such spikes that Baton Rouge was chosen as a site for federal surge testing for a couple weeks. And I took advantage of the site nearest to me and was tested last week. My reasoning for getting tested was partly that it felt like the right thing to do. (And I’m a sucker for free stuff, let me tell you!) But the more pressing desire to be tested was a possible exposure. Read the rest on Baton Rouge Parents Magazine's website .

After the birth of her second daughter, Gracie, on April 2, Stephanie Melancon had two days at home with her family of four before their lives turned upside down. “Stephanie started feeling bad, and by that evening, she could hardly walk. She had a 104.8 fever,” says Mike Melancon, Stephanie’s husband. At the direction of her doctor, Mike rushed Stephanie back to Woman’s Hospital. Stephanie was initially diagnosed with viral pneumonia and a few days later tested positive for COVID-19. She ended up spending 52 days at Woman’s, experiencing a number of setbacks during her recovery, including a cardiac arrest and about six weeks on a ventilator. A tracheostomy was performed to help wean her off the ventilator, and Stephanie received a passy muir valve to allow her to speak. She was kept in a medically induced coma for much of her stay at Woman’s and experiences short-term memory loss from the sedation. “It was pretty bad for a while,” Mike says. “Every day she would poi...

Everyone needs clean water, but not all of us think about what it takes to have that access. Rylan Carruth, 12, does, and he’s active in sharing ways to get involved and ensure Baton Rouge’s drinking water stays as great as it is. When he first learned about the Louisiana Environmental Action Network and the Save Our Water campaign, he took action and got involved. His advocacy has led him to speak with Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome and her Youth Advisory Council, present at a meeting of the Metro Council, and meet with Robert Kennedy as part of Riverkeepers Alliance. “I don’t consider myself an activist,” Rylan says. “I think we should have clean air and water, and I think corporations should be good neighbors.” Along with older brothers Liam and Adam, Rylan says their environmentally conscious family has always reduced, reused and recycled as much as possible. A seventh grader at University Laboratory School, Rylan is applying his mindset to improving his sc...

As Education and Community sections editor, I wrote pages 16-23 and page 26 of the July 2020 issue of Baton Rouge Parents magazine. See the web layout on the magazine's website .