Ruston High School senior Makenna Pollard has been named the 2025 recipient of the It’s a Girl Thing: Making Proud Choices Scholarship presented by Union General Hospital. The an- nouncement celebrates Makenna’s outstanding achievements in academics, leadership, and per- sonal growth through her six-year journey in the program. Makenna joined It’s a Girl Thing in junior high and has grown …

His ancestry, traced to a historic enclave of Af- ro-Caribbean culture, links Leo XIV to the rich and sometimes overlooked Black Catholic experi- ence in America. Robert Francis Prevost, the Chicago-born car- dinal selected on Thursday as the new pope, is descended from Creole people of color from New Orleans. The pope’s maternal grandparents, both of whom are described as …

Y’all may not be old enough to remember it butI still do. Hank Williams had a bunch of hits backin the day as his twangy voice sang all sorts of sadlove songs, such as ‘I’m so Lonesome I could cry”,“Lovesick Blues”, “Mansion on the Hill”. But hehad one that was a jumpy little ditty abouttaking his girl friend out for …