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Who would have thought a 1977 Meaux High School graduate is on track to become America’s winningest high school basketball coach?
St. Thomas More basketball coach Danny Broussard continues to climb the National Federation High School all-time list of high school winningest basketball coaches in America.
As 2022 came to a close, Broussard won his 1,097 high school basketball game. That put him at No. 7, surpassing Coach Bill Krueger, who coached in Texas. Krueger had 1,096 wins.
“It shows that I have been in coaching for 40 years,” said Broussard about the 1,097 wins. “It is the players who made it happen.”
Coach Broussard coached against Coach Krueger early in his career. STM competed in a tournament in Texas years back. One game was against Coach Krueger, so there is a remote connection between the two.
When this season began, Coach Broussard found Coach Krueger’s phone number and called him to let him know there was a chance he was going to overtake him on the all-time list.
“I wanted to touch base with him (Coach Krueger),” said Broussard. “He told me he retired early (at the age of 63) because his parents were ill. But, he said he would have loved to continue coaching.”
Coach Krueger congratulated Broussard during that phone call.
This brings up the one-million-dollar question Broussard is asked every season. How many more years will he coach?
His answer? As long as he can.
“I am still having fun and enjoying it,” said Broussard. “I do not have a timeline.”
By the end of the next basketball season, if STM wins 27 games like it has been averaging, Broussard will climb to the No. 6 all-time winningest coach. He would overtake coach Ralph Tasker from New Mexico, who has 1,122 wins.
Peabody High School Coach Charles Smith, who is still active, is at No. 5 on the all-time list. Smith has 1,134 wins at the age of 73 years old.
Broussard coached against No. 1 Robert Hughes of Fort Worth, Texas with 1,333 wins (and lost) in the 1990s, but also defeated No. 6 Bill Krueger of League City, Texas, who is currently No. 6 with 1,096 wins.

OK, so let us do some math.

Over the last 41 years, Broussard has averaged 27 wins a year. He is 63 years old. If Broussard’s health remains intact, he could coach for another 10 years. St. Thomas More could win at least 20 games a year over the next 10 years, giving him an extra 200 wins to go along with his 1,097 wins today.
That would give him 1,297 wins and put him at No. 2 on the all-time list.
The high school coach with the most wins is Robert Hughes from Texas, with 1,333 wins. Broussard could overtake him two different ways.
STM would have to win 27 games over the next nine years, giving Broussard 1,340 wins or 24 wins over the next 10 years for a total of 1,337 wins.
But catching Coach Hughes is not a priority to Broussard.
“I am not going to stay in coaching to set records,” said Broussard.
In 40 years at STM, his teams have won six state titles and three runner-up trophies.

About once a month I get a note from someone who lives someplace else, often far away and for a long time, who reads my column in a community newspaper they still get to stay in touch with the town they will always call home. It appears that the roots that bind us to this place spread wide as well as go deep, and I think I’ve found a few clues why that is during the half-century-plus that I have been writing about south Louisiana. It has to do with our sense of place.
Over those years, I’ve driven down practically every south Louisiana road on the map (and some that aren’t), visited (or at least passed through) every named community, and met and been befriended by some of the most extraordinary “ordinary” people on the globe.
Sometimes I visited a place for a reason; there was a specific person or story to be found there. Just as often it was my natural instinct to meander that made me turn onto a road I’d never driven before, just to see where it went and what it passed along the way.
I’ve spent considerable time looking for places that aren’t here anymore, trying to find traces of communities that are now only names on old maps and that have been passed by or swallowed up as the world changed.
I found a good many of them by stopping at homes that looked like they’d been lived in a while to ask, “Have you ever heard of Such-and-Such?” As often as not I’d get a wonderful reminiscence about growing up in a community that is now only memory, many times accompanied by a search through an armoire or old desk for a picture of “daddy’s old store,” or something similar. There has always been a good cup of coffee to go with the conversation.
Over the decades I’ve worn out a seemingly indestructible Olivetti manual typewriter, two fancy IBM electrics, and several computer keyboards to save the memories those strangers shared with me. I figured once that over my working life at least a million of my words have been put into print in one form or another – some of it decent writing, some of it only a step above typing exercises, but almost all of it in a quest to tell a remarkable story.
South Louisiana is full of colorful people and ways and traditions found no place else. My Louisiana map put out by the state highway department marks off Acadiana by coloring it beige while the rest of the state is in a darker color. That’s a sure sign that the map was made by somebody from Shreveport. Anyone who’s been here for a night of eating and dancing and story-telling over cold beer or coffee noir comme le diable, forte comme la mort, doux comme l’amour, et chaud comme l’enfer — black as the devil, strong as death, sweet as love, and hot as hades — knows that the color for Acadiana is definitely not bland beige. The good times are too many for that.
Whether we are Cajun or Creole or Anglo or German or Whatever, we share a set of connections here — to shared celebrations (sometimes for no reason except that we like to have fun), to family, to each other, to the seasons, to the land and sea, to church and community, to a set of disappearing, simpler values that perhaps require simpler times to survive. I hope we can hold onto those things, or at least adapt them to this fast-changing world.
One of the ways we may be able to do that is to remind ourselves that they are important because they set us apart from people from other places and bind us together at home — that it is important that we keep alive experiences and places and circumstances that we can easily overlook because we think them commonplace, or because we are too busy or distracted to pay attention to them. Many of these things are in fact our glue.
Each New Year we look forward to what is to come. But this can also be a time to look back at who we are and where we have come from – and to resolve to make sure that we do not forget the things and places and customs and attitudes that make us want to stay in touch, even when we are far away.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 705089.

Twenty-eight years ago, Erath High 17-year-old senior Chas Milliman collapsed while jogging in front of Erath Middle School on Dec. 30, 1994.
The Milliman family is still having a hard time today dealing with his death. Every Christmas is a tough time for his mom Loretta, Chas’s younger brother Jed and sister Joni Milliman Hebert.
There are still tears shed each time the Christmas tree is put up. For years after his death, Loretta did not put up a Christmas tree because it reminded her of Chas and how he loved to hang ornaments.
This past Christmas, Loretta decided not to hang the Christmas ornaments that her children had made when they were young.
“Christmas has never been the same,” said Loretta. “We talk about Chas every Christmas.”
Years after his death, the Milliman decided to celebrate the life of Chas instead of mourning his death. So, for Christmas, the Millimans do things together as a family to honor Chas’s life.
Loretta remembers the day she saw her son
lying on the ground like yesterday.
Loretta was baking cookies when Chas told her bye and gave her a two-finger wave as he walked out of the house. That was the last time she saw him alive.
Later that day, assistant football coaches Tommie Pillette and Tommy Byler knocked on her door to tell her that Chase had collapsed while jogging.
She arrived at school and saw CPR being done on her son. Unfortunately, he died on the scene. An autopsy was performed at LSU, the college he planned on attending after high school, where it was determined he had an enlarged heart.
The Milliman family learned from the autopsy that Chas’s heart was not healthy and that a new heart would have prevented a heart attack.
Today, Chas, who was 6-2, and 280 pounds at the time of his death, would be 45 years old and working in the sports profession, said his mom.
Loretta said, “He had plans to major in mass communications at LSU. He wanted to be the voice of the LSU Tigers one day. He loved talking to everyone. He had an internship set up at LSU.”
Loretta said Chas managed to get to LSU, but that is because that was where an autopsy was performed on him.
“He was a great kid, and I am still not over his death,” said Loretta.

ERATH — A Mass of Christian Burial for Mr. Charles “Chuck” Mowry, 75, will be held at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 at 1:00PM with Fr. Sensat officiating. Burial will follow at LeBlanc Cemetery.
Visitation will be held at David Funeral Home of Erath on Wednesday, January 4, 2023 from 9:00AM until time of services with a recitation of the rosary at 11:00AM.
A resident of Lafayette, Mr. Chuck passed away on Friday, December 30, 2022 at his residence. He was a war hero and served in the Third Force Reconnaissance Company, Third Reconnaissance Battalion, Third Marine Division in Connection with operations against the enemy in the Republic of Vietnam from 25 April 1967 to 17 May 1968. He was a recipient of the Bronze Star and authorized to wear the Combat V. Once back home, he became a carpenter, inventor, and world traveler. He was a deep-sea diver for Global Divers and designed offshore boats and equipment over his 25 year career.
He is survived by his wife, Carol Mowry of Erath; his sons, Charles Mowry and his wife Cheryl of Erath, Patrick Mowry and his wife Ashley of Covington, Timothy Mowry of Lafayette, and David Mowry and his wife Michelle of Lafayette; his daughter, Michelle Young and her husband Darius Sayer of Pflugerville, TX; his grandchildren, Nicholas Mowry, Bryant Mowry, Noah Mowry, Catherine Mowry, Madeline Holdridge, Sean Mowry, and Alaina Mowry; his great grandchildren, James Mowry, Sophia Mowry, Bennett Mowry, and Elliot Holdridge; his sister, Donna Sybert of Meridian, ID, his brothers, Earl Carlton Mowry and his wife Sue of Hayward, CA, and Paul Mowry and his wife Cindy of Marathon, FL.
He is preceded in death by his parents, Earl Carlton Mowry and Marie Roth Mowry; his daughter, Michelle Ann-Marie Mowry; and his son, Michael Sean Mowry.
In lieu of flowers please donate to the Catholic Charities and Wounded Warrior Project.
You may sign the guest register book and express condolences online at www.davidfuneralhome.org
David Funeral Home of Erath 209 E. Putnam St. (337)937-0405 will handle the arrangements.