Winners of the D’Arbonne Woods Charter School Spelling Bee included: Division 1 First Place, Maverick Tucker; Second Place, Jesper Lemoine, Third Place Everett Kavanaugh. Division 2 First Place, Lucy Vocker, Second Place Melodee Carr and Third Place, Conner Craig.

Union Black Heritage Festival coming up The 31st Annual Union Black Heritage festivities kick off Friday with the annual Black Heritage banquet, 6:30 p.m. at the Willie Davis, Jr. Recreation Center, 116 Cox Ferry Rd. in Farmerville.The annual Black Heritage Festival will occur the following weekend, Feb. 16-17 at the courthouse parking lot in Farmerville.Banquet tickets are $35 per person …

From news serivces reportsState officials are continuing discussions of a possible $2.5 billion sale of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, a non-profit health insurer used by nearly half of the state’s residents, to a much larger for-profit insurer based in Indiana.A legislative committee held a nearly eight-hour meeting Monday to consider the proposed sale of Blue Cross and …