The celebration, held at 6 p.m. at Cypress Bayou Casino in Charenton, honors six Head Start alumni students. The honorees include actress Denise Boutte, educator Dr. Mary Keller Boudreaux, news personality Danika Foley, journalist Author Don Shoopman 5/2/08 do you mean Arthur? Robert Pierre, country singer Shalacy Griffin and lawyer Brandi Sanders.
St. Mary CAA chief executive officer Almetra J. Franklin said the Head Start Program has been recognized on many levels for enhancing the early educational experience of children and their families. The results are highlighted in today’s event.
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Boudreaux, the daughter of Phelo Joseph and Malvina Keller, was born and raised in Verdunville. She received her educational start at the Snow White Head Start Center and later graduated from Centerville High School.
Boudreaux earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and completed graduate work with a Doctor of Education Curriculum and Instruction degree from Texas Southern University in Houston. She is currently working on Post Doctoral Work in the field of Adolescent Literacy Education at Sam Houston State University. She continues to serve the children and families of the Royal Independent School District as the director of curriculum, a position she took in 2007.
Pierre lives in Washington D.C. but grew up in Charenton, Baldwin and Franklin.
He began his education at Peter Pan Head Start Center in Franklin and from Franklin Senior High in 1986.
He attended LSU, and received his bachelor’s degree in Journalism in 1990. After graduating he worked at the The New Orleans Times-Picayune covering education in the River Parishes.
The rest of his journalism career has been at the Washington Post. He was the first person at the Post to propose the 2006 series, “Being a Black Man,” that ran for most of that year and later became a book with the same title. In April he was part of the Washington Post metro staff that won the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for coverage of the massacre at Virginia Tech.
Pierre is the son of Willard Pierre and Louise Pierre.
Sanders is the daughter of Barry and Barbara Sanders. Her educational path began at Snow White Head Start Center in Verdunville. She graduated from Franklin Senior High School in 1999.
Upon graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies from LSU in May 2004, she was accepted to Southern University Law Center and began a quest to obtain her Juris Doctor degree. Sanders graduated from Southern University Law Center with her Juris Doctor degree on May 12, 2007.
She now works in the Chicago office of Sidley Austin LLP, where she continues her commitment to the community by participating in Sidley Adopt-A-School-Lawyers in the Classroom Program, teaching Consti-tutional Law to middle school students at a low-income Chicago public school.
Foley is the daughter of Lezo and Pearline Foley and a proud product of the Head Start program where she received an enriching education at Shrewsbury Head Start. Following the Head Start program, she continued her education at several institutions and ended her schooling at Loyola University in New Orleans, where she majored in Communications and minored in Latin American studies. A television news reporter and anchor,
Dankia previously was employed as a radio announcer, traffic reporter and an Internet show host for New Orleans Net LLC.
Griffin attended Abbeville Head Start Center and is a graduate of Abbeville Senior High School. She recorded her debut album Shalacy in 2002 and is working on new material with platinum selling producer Micheal Knox.
Boutte attended the Maurice Head Start Center and eventually graduated with a degree in mass communications from Louisiana State University.
She has appeared in dozens of television shows and recently played a role in the Tyler Perry film, “Why Did I Get Married?,” which grossed $21.5 million on its opening weekend.
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