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IBERIA PARISH – At approximately 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2023, Troopers from Louisiana State Police Troop I were notified of a three-vehicle crash on US Highway 90 westbound near Estis Road.
The crash claimed the life of 52-year-old Cotura P. Roy of Breaux Bridge.
The initial investigation by State Police revealed the crash occurred as Roy was driving a 2020 BMW west on US 90 when traffic ahead was stopped due to congestion caused by a previous crash. As Roy was stopped, a 2018 Chevrolet Silverado driven by Bengy Trosclair failed to slow to a stop and struck the rear of the BMW, pushing it forward into a 2020 Ford F150.
Roy, despite being restrained, suffered fatal injuries. She was pronounced dead at the scene by the Iberia Parish Coroner’s Office. All other drivers were restrained and reported no injuries.
While impairment is not suspected, a toxicology sample was submitted for analysis from Roy. The two other drivers involved submitted breath samples indicating no alcohol present, and neither driver displayed signs of impairment.
While not all crashes are preventable, limiting distractions, observing traffic laws, and not driving while impaired would eliminate many of these crashes from occurring. When driving on populated roadways, it is essential to always limit speed, not follow too closely, and always look at least 5 seconds ahead, when possible, in order to safely react to slowing and stopped traffic.

GUEYDAN — The Gueydan Library is currently closed due to the presence of mold in the building.
Angie LeBlanc, the Gueydan librarian, stated that the closure was a result of an inspection that revealed the mold. Remediation efforts will soon be underway and expected to be completed promptly.
Following the library’s closure, Chad Vallo, a Vermilion Parish Police Juror, and Charlotte Bourg, the Vermilion Parish Library Director, responded to the situation.
Vallo stated that he contacted architect Gene Sellers Jr. to inquire about the reason behind the closure. Architect Gene Sellers Jr. was unaware of the mold situation.
According to Vallo, the police jury from Gueydan, who are the owners of the building, were not notified about the mold issue in the library or the closure of the facility.
The library will remain closed for a few weeks, but there is no definite timeline for when it will reopen.
Bourq provided an update on the mold problem at the Gueydan library this week.
“The Gueydan Branch of the Vermilion Parish Library is currently undergoing preparations for mold remediation and subsequent rebuilding,” she said. “The library is actively seeking contractors through a bidding process to carry out the remediation work.”
Once a contractor is chosen and the library is ready, the remediation process will commence, targeting contaminated drywall, ventilation, materials, and any other affected surfaces.
Bourg said she will let the public know as soon as she knows when the library will reopen.
“The library is working very hard to prepare the Gueydan Branch of the Vermilion Parish Library for the mold remediation and rebuild afterward,” she added.
Patrons can access computers, printers, and a fax machine at the Kaplan Branch located at 815 North Cushing Boulevard in Kaplan. The phone number is 337-643-7209.
One of the types of mold found was concentrations of Chaetomium.
“This type of mold is commonly found in water-damaged buildings. It has a musty odor and can cause health issues such as skin and nail infections,” Bourg said. “In some cases, it can produce mycotoxins that can be very dangerous to individuals with compromised immune systems.”
The Gueydan Library is taking the necessary precautions to ensure the safety of the public and protect the library’s property,” she said.
As part of their thorough investigation, they will be examining the books in the library to determine if any of them have mold.

Several Vermilion Parish athletes qualified for the state cross country meet to be held on Monday, Nov. 13, at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
Athletes qualify for state in five divisions with three regions each that are divided into 22-plus schools each, select and non-select combined. The top eight schools from each region and the top 25 individuals (if that person’s team does not qualify) will compete at state.
In Division II Region 1, North Vermilion competed at Acadiana Park in Lafayette on Thursday.
North Vermilion’s Andrew Courville qualified for state by placing 22nd overall in a time of 18:01.7. Brylee Moreau finished 15th in a time of 21:25.5 for NVHS and Abigail Hebert was 24th in a time of 22:06.8 to qualify.
In Division III Region 2, the Erath girls team qualified, finishing 5th as a team with Alexa Tarin-Carlon finishing ninth overall with a time of 20:22.2, Isabelle Hardin 13th in 20:43.6, Abigail Theall 22nd in 22:12.5 and Makayla Vice 25th in 22:26.5. Also on the qualifying team for Erath were Heather Hardin, Braelyn Nelson and Zayli Vincent. Kaplan’s Breah Harrington qualified by placing 23rd overall with a time of 22:15.5.
On the boys side, Erath High and Kaplan qualified as teams, finishing fourth and sixth, respectively. For Erath, Cadn Lange finished 17th overall in a time of 17:27.6, Lawson Broussard 19th in 17:34.5 and Carlos Arellano 22nd in 17:58.4. Also competing for the qualifying team for Erath were Parker Blanchard, Braxton Bright, Connor Lange and Kalex Cornner.
Members of the Kaplan High qualifying team were Ethan Owens, Troy Norwood, Ross Primeaux, Lane Turnley and Gunner Bourque. Girls competing for Kaplan in addition to Harrington were Bailey Stelly, Ariel Hebert and Gabrielle Maraist.

Henri Clay Bienvenu was born in 1941, but his story really begins over half a century earlier, around 1886, with a 12-year-old kid tacking obituary notices to telegraph poles in St. Martinville, notices that he had printed himself on a small hand press in the offices of a brand-new newspaper called the Weekly Messenger.
The kid was Lazaire E. Bienvenu, Henri’s grandfather. Lazaire’s older brother, Albert, started the paper with another fellow, but by the time he was 20, Lazaire was running it. He was followed by his son, Marcel (“Blackie”), who was followed by his son, Henri. Along the way, the name was changed to Teche News.
When Henri was growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s, St. Martinville was like Mayberry and surrounding St. Martin Parish was the epitome of the Sportsman’s Paradise. Henri’s sister Marcelle Bienvenu, famous for her books on Cajun and Creole cuisine, said their childhood “was always some big adventure.” They roughed it in various campsites around Catahoula Lake, had to melt the ice from the coffee pot in their duck camp near Gueydan, fished and swam in Bayou Teche.
Henri, who was a few years older, was often charged with bringing Marcelle along as he and his chums roamed the nearby woods and fields.
“One time they were practicing their boy scout knots and they tied me up and left me in a cane field,” she said. “Their knots held just fine but they forgot where they left me.”
Blackie had to call the sheriff’s office to turn out a search party, by then after dark.
“But Henri was a good little guy,” she said. “He was no trouble at all.”
Like his father and grandfather, he started working at the newspaper at a young age. His lifelong friend Ray Pellerin (who followed his own father’s footsteps into the funeral home business) remembers Henri running around tacking funeral notices to the telephone poles, just like his grandfather. As a teenager, he fed lead to the Linotype machine and ran the presses.
But by all accounts, Henri did not want to be a newspaperman. He majored in business administration at the University of Southwestern Louisiana, where he met another St. Martin Parish luminary, Paul Hardy, former lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and state senator.
“Henri was Mr. Cool at USL,” Paul said. “He had a BMW Isetta,” (A one-cylinder four-wheel covered motor scooter with the door in front and no reverse.) “but it was a car. Nobody else had a car. Gas cost him 68 cents a week, he told me. And he even double-dated in it one time!”
Paul met Henri through Phi Kappa Theta, where Henri had risen to president. They lived in a fraternity house on Jefferson Street, roomed together in fact.
“Henri, who was a year older, appointed me to my first responsible position, he made me housemother! Ten fraternity rats and a bulldog!” (PKT at the time housed the university’s mascot, Gee.) “And I’m responsible for keeping the place clean. It was a long time before I sought another responsible position, I can tell you,” Paul said.
Someone else Henri met at USL was Maria Comeaux of Lafayette. They met on a blind date in 1962, and married when Henri got out of Officer Candidate School, a newly minted second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. They began married life at the former Fort Bragg, now Fort Liberty, in North Carolina, where he served as an artillery officer.
“We liked the life,” Maria said. “Fort Bragg had lots of activities. There were seven golf courses, seven officers’ clubs. And even back then, we both loved to travel.”
The couple had decided to make the Army a career, until they came to the confluence of two events in the spring of ‘66. The war in Vietnam was ratcheting up, and Henri was fast approaching the time for him to re-up or end his tour of active duty. One by one they saw their friends being separated, wife and kids going home to family, husband moving in with Henri and Maria in their spacious triple-wide trailer until they received orders to ship out.
“Henri didn’t know what to do,” Maria said. “He called his father for advice, and Blackie said ‘Come on home, Son. I need you here.’
Thus, Henri became the fourth Bienvenu to head up St. Martin Parish’s journal of record. But that’s far from the end of the story. Henri and Maria went on to have four daughters, a son, and 18 grandchildren. But Henri was also married to the Teche News.
“Many, many times he would come home in the evening, watch the news on TV, eat supper, and then go back to work until eight or eight-thirty,” said Henri’s son, Gerard.
He remained in the Army Reserves for a couple of years, commanding a combat engineer company in Lafayette and rising to the rank of captain before his separation from military service. One of those quiet, steady fellows whose words have weight, Henri became a pillar of the community, serving as president of the Jaycees and the Rotary Club, and lending valuable editorial space to any number of civic projects.
Up the road in Breaux Bridge, his old friend Ray Pellerin turned to Henri when he needed help with one of his many endeavors, like a parish-wide fire-fighting district, or an annual Christmas boat parade.
“Any project I ever did, Henri was right there,” said Ray. “Anything he could be involved in, he didn’t have to be asked twice.”
One might expect a business administration graduate and former commanding officer to be a good business manager, but it turned out that Henri also inherited a good nose for news. And sports. Following Blackie’s lead, he penned what became the first thing many Teche News subscribers turned to, his newsy, gossipy, and often dryly humorous column “Pense Donc!!”, which, after Blackie’s death, incorporated his beloved “This & That...” column.
Perhaps because Maria became a teacher, Henri took a special interest in education, covering the St. Martin Parish School Board until he died. Burton Dupuis, whose many roles in St. Martin Parish’s civic scene included a stint at superintendent of schools back in the 1980s, remembers Henri as a very thorough and accurate reporter.
“Before my first meeting, my secretary told me to expect a phone call from Henri at 8 o’clock on Thursday morning,” Burton said. “And sure enough, at 8 o’clock, Henri was on the phone asking questions about the agenda. The school board didn’t always share the details, but that wasn’t going to stop him.”
Burton instructed his staff to give Henri the same packet of information board members got, a practice that continues to this day.
Henri also became a first-class news photographer, perfecting the art of tasteful, girl-next-door cheesecake in the monthly “Bayou Belle” feature whose subjects constitute an honored sorority in St. Martin Parish.
His impactful coverage of Mardi Gras, the Crawfish Festival, La Grande Boucherie helped them to thrive and put St. Martin Parish on the map.
His old friend and former roomie Paul Hardy continued to subscribe to and read the Teche News long after he moved permanently to Baton Rouge.
“I’d call people back home and tease them, telling them about one thing or another, and they’d say, ‘How do you know that?’ It’s in the Teche News, I’d say. If you want to know what’s going on, you gotta read the Teche News!”
Henri semi-retired in 2007, but he continued to cover the school board, and high school football, and write “Pence Donc!!” (translates as ‘Think About It!’), and of course shoot “Bayou Belle.” He had some health issues, heart surgery, cancer, but he kept on keepin’ on, until that Monday morning when he couldn’t make it to his desk without pausing to catch his breath. He was 82.
Henri’s gone, and it’s not just the end of a line of talented and dedicated newspapermen. In some ways it’s the end of an era