Well so much for summer. The wife and I were matching up schedules and it seems like the only down time we have is to sleep or stay out of the heat. And then before you know it, it’s football season. BCISD starts school on Aug. 6. LCM, OF, WOS, and Vidor start Aug. 13 and Deweyville Aug. 20.
Always like to spread the good news and former LCM Athletic Director and Head Football Coach Randy Crouch is being inducted into the 2025 Hall of Fame Class at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. Crouch, a lineman, was a key part of three DII national championship teams (1972, 1973, 1974). Crouch was a First Team All-Southland pick in 1974 and earned spots on the Football 100-Year Anniversary and 50 Greatest Players in Joe Aillet Stadium history teams. The 2025 Hall of Fame class will be formally inducted on Saturday, Nov. 1 as part of Homecoming Weekend.
The State baseball championships were held over the weekend and Chris Buechner’s Kingwood Park team came up short but Kingwood, which has Kyle Adams as an assistant coach, did win the 6AD2 title. Congrats to them both (LCM grads).
On Wednesday the UIL announced that all baseball playoff series in 4A and 3A would now be a best of three series. In other words no more flipping for a one game. I’m cool with that but it is not fair to play a series every week to reach the Championship and then only play one game for the title.
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A couple of anniversaries to talk about.
Mary Beth Rose informed us Wednesday that it had been 10 years since her son Aaron had been found in a kayak miles off the coast of Roatan, Honduras.
Many of you will remember that story, I know I did while covering it for KOGT. Rose was there on a church mission after graduating from LCM. He went out on a kayak to see the sunset, got caught up in some bad weather and lost his paddle if memory serves. The next day he was found miles off the coast by rescuers in a helicopter.
Aaron is married now and about to become a father. We wish them all the best.
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We are coming up on the anniversary of the Old Hwy. 90 bridge burning, aka The Burned Out bridge. It burned on June 16, 1973. There are several versions of the story surrounding it but most say someone set both ends on fire in a suicide attempt. The wooden structure was almost a mile long and burned for several days.
What a lot of people think is that the road closed after the fire. Actually the swing bridge across the Sabine had already been removed after I-10 had been completed. With all of the TxDOT mess it sure would’ve been nice to have an alternate route. And just think what it could’ve/would’ve done for downtown Orange.
Anyway…the interesting part of all this is what I read in Dr. Williams’ book “Picturing Orange” about the area across the river known as East Orange, Louisiana. Williams said it was called the Silver Strip as it was an area filled with nightclubs, gambling and probably some prostitution.
So “going across the river” is a term that was used way before my parents were going to The Big Oaks, and youngins my age were trying to get into The Pelican. And I only did that once, mom.
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Well we’ve started hurricane season and that usually prompts people to ask me about stories, etc. from past storms and sometimes you guys remember them better than me even though I was the one involved. I even got an email asking me to tell hurricane stories each week in The Juice during hurricane season.
I will tell you that Rita (2005) which was the first one will always stand out from the others for me. Mainly because we really didn’t know what we were doing since it had been so long since we took a direct hit.
We’ve come so far since then that the county is in the process of building four structures just to hand out storm related survival and clean up items when the next one happens.
Always remember that we could not have done what we did during Rita without several people. Wayne Reeh is the first that comes to mind. He owned PNX computers and was wise enough to get a large generator when no one had them at that time which allowed KOGT to communicate with the public. He trusted me with the keys and left and that’s where I slept for several weeks.
Wow, I stepped away from the website just now to try and find a young man’s name who helped us reach more people because we were maxing out each day and I went down a rabbit hole for an hour that I haven’t been down in a while. Certainly could lead to more stories you’ve asked to read about in The Juice!
Have a great week!
-Gary Stelly-
gstelly66@gmail.com
Volume 1 No. 20
The Juice is a weekly column where Gary Stelly discusses things that happened the past week and mixes it with 40 years of being involved in the Orange County community. (If we think of a better way to explain it we’ll change it) You can also check out his podcast by clicking on the Behind the Mic banner on the KOGT.com front page.
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