Hessmer's Cajun Crossroads Festival exceeds expectations

Baseball, jambalaya, music and memories were the key ingredients to what Hessmer Mayor Travis Franks called “a festival that exceeded all of my expectations.”

 

The Cajun Crossroads Festival began Friday night with the beginning games of an adult T-ball tournament. It concluded with a fireworks display,  the final games of that tournament and music Saturday night. In between that first game and the last game, there was a Saturday filled with jambalaya cooking, kids playing, a lot of soft drink drinking and snack food eating, and grown-ups acting like kids on the baseball diamond.

 

“Our best estimate is that we had about 3,000 people come in and out over the two days,” Franks said. “That includes the T-ball players, the jambalaya cookers and visitors from all over the parish.”

 

The village decided to have the festival as a community celebration for the recent purchase of the ballpark, tennis courts and other property on the campus of the former Hessmer High School, closed by a federal court in 1988. It also marks the village’s 60th anniversary as a municipality.

 

The village named the ballpark in honor of the late Ronald Mayeux, who was instrumental in starting a baseball program at Hessmer High and Little League in the parish.

 

Mayeux was a graduate of Hessmer, taught vocational-agriculture at the school, was superintendent of schools from 1980-86 and again from 2000-2007, and was serving as HHS principal when the school was closed.

 

As rain fell like teardrops on the assembled crowd, Mayeux’s son Eric delivered an emotional tribute to his father to dedicate the ballpark sign.

 

Eric said one of his favorite memories with his father was a trip they made to Cincinnati, when his father’s favorite player, Pete Rose, was there. One of Rose’s best known quotes was “Hustle makes it happen.” Rose was nicknamed “Charlie Hustle.”

 

Mayeux adopted that quote as his motto, and lived his life according to that credo, his son noted.

 

Although the smell of the various jambalayas could, by itself, have wrecked any diet, the tasting of the treat was the main competition of the day.

 

Sheriff Doug Anderson’s team won 1st place in the official judging, with Musso second and Scotty Scott third.

 

However, Krazy Katie’s Country Store won the “People’s Choice” award, in which visitors paid $5 for a bowl and a blue ticket to go around the jambalaya tents to taste the fare before awarding the ticket to the one they found the tastiest.

 

In T-ball, Eric Guillory defeated Corey Juneau in the title game.

 

Another competition was the home run derby, with Brandon Rozas winning the adult contest with 29 homers.

In the children’s contest, Payton Roy won the 9-and-under category, Carson Dauzat was the 10-12 ‘sultan of swat’ and Ethan Knight took the crown in the 13-15 age group.

“We are just so thankful to this community and to all of Avoyelles Parish for supporting this festival,” Franks said.