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LOREAUVILLE – A Mass of Christian Burial will be conducted for Mrs. Donna Mae Horton Migues, 64, on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 at 2:30PM at St. Joseph Catholic Church with Father Ed Degeyter officiating. Interment will follow at All Saints Mausoleum.
Visitation will be held on Wednesday, April 21, 2021from 9:00AM until the time of the service.
A native of Loreauville and resident of Erath, Mrs. Migues passed away on Sunday, April 18, 2021 at an Abbeville Hospital. Ms. Donna enjoyed cooking, baking, sewing, and fishing. She had a wonderful personality and enjoyed telling jokes and making people laugh. She was a good-hearted, kind and loving person who never met a stranger, and will be dearly missed.
She is survived by her husband, Wade Migues of Erath; son, Travis Migues of Erath; siblings, Darrell Horton and wife Darlene of St. Martinville, Jeffrey Horton of Coteau Holmes, Brian Horton and wife Priscilla “Pris” of Coteau Holmes, Pauline Horton of Loreauville, Michael Horton and wife Linda of Coteau Holmes, Tina Savoy and husband Travis of Loreauville; and numerous nieces and nephews.
She was preceded in death by her parents, Sidney Horton Jr. and Louise Arnaud Horton; father-in-law and mother-in-law, Joseph “C.D.” Migues and Jusselle Primeaux Migues; and sister-in-law, Wanda Horton.
Honored to serve as Pallbearers are Jeffrey Horton, Michael Horton, Brian Horton, Darrell Horton, Marlon Daigle and Travis Savoy.
To help keep the community safe we will honor all Louisiana Mandates. All families and their guests are required to wear a face-covering while at the funeral home. Thank you for your understanding during this unprecedented time.
Family and friends may sign the guest register book and/or send condolences at www.davidfuneralhome.org
David Funeral Home of Loreauville, 116 S. Main St. 337-229-8338 is in charge of arrangements.

Brittney Forbes
LSU Manship School
News Service

BATON ROUGE — Employment in Louisiana’s oil and gas industry has been declining since 2014 and took another big hit during the COVID-19 pandemic, with layoffs of 7,500 more workers.
The high-paying jobs have not come back yet even though world oil prices have rebounded to pre-pandemic levels. And as President Joe Biden pushes to accelerate a shift to renewable energy sources, oil and gas workers from Lafayette to Houma are feeling increasingly uneasy about the future.
Loren Scott, an economist who does consulting work for the industry, said Louisiana has about 27,000 jobs in oil and gas extraction, or 7,500 fewer than in January 2020. That number reflects those working in oil and gas exploration and production.
“The big hit that took place is a result of COVID just dealing another blow to the industry,” he said.
Even with the rebound in crude oil prices over the last few months, the South Louisiana oil patch remains “one of the few sectors of the economy that did not show any improvement” in jobs, Scott said.
Gary Wagner, an economics professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, said that an array of businesses that support the oil and gas industry also have lost jobs, and adding these in brings the total job losses to at least 24,000 since the peak in 2014.
Crude oil prices plunged from $106 a barrel in 2014 to $27 in 2016 before bouncing to more than $60 in January 2020.
Patrick Courreges, the communications director at the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, said the industry suffered last year as Americans cut back on travel and worked from home. That’s because many of the refined products, like gasoline, are for transportation.
Courreges said that as oil prices dropped, rigs in production and drilling permits trended down. And when consumer demand fell with the spread of the virus, the industry took a beating like never before.
As the economy reopens and Americans adjust to “the new normal,” he said, the industry is showing some signs of recovery. Since the state’s fiscal year started last July 1, Louisiana received $4.2 million from leasing state lands to oil and gas companies and issuing water bonds. The numbers were closer to $2.5 million for the previous fiscal year, he said.
But in some places, the jobs picture has only gotten worse.
The Houma area lost about 9,200 jobs of all types, or 11% of its total, when the pandemic hit, Scott said, with many of them related to oil and gas.
Wagner said Houma had 8,300 oil and gas extraction and support jobs in 2014. But that number has since declined to 5,200.
Lafayette is a center for the service industries that support drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. It hit peak employment in support activities for mining in 2014 at 20,724. That number was down to 8,642 in 2020.
Crude oil prices briefly dropped to $11 a barrel after the pandemic hit, but they have since rebounded to around $60.
Wagner said he does not think oil prices will rise much more over the next two years. But even if they rose more, he does not think Louisiana would see an increase in jobs—or that the industry will ever be quite as important to the state as it once was.
In the mid-1980s, 35% of the state’s economy was directly related to oil and gas. “That’s huge,” he said. “That was probably the highest in the country.”
But as the state’s economy has diversified with the increase in casino and other types of jobs, the share of the state’s jobs related to oil and gas has dropped to 2.5%, he said.
Wagner said it is more costly to extract oil from the Gulf of Mexico than it is to drill for it on land in other parts of the country. Total oil and gas production has gone up in the United States over the last decade, but Louisiana’s share of the pie has declined.
“We just happen to be a relatively high-cost producer,” he said. “So it’s tough to be competitive in that environment.”
Scott said, however, that the industry made a major technological breakthrough in 2019, learning how to drill safely at spots deep in the Gulf with higher water pressures. That prompted some industry officials to think that drilling was set to take off there in 2020.
But a sale of oil and gas leases in the Gulf drew little activity as the pandemic started in March 2020, and the Trump administration canceled another sale in August.
The Biden administration also canceled a lease sale last month after it declared a temporary moratorium on selling new leases in the Gulf while it decides on its energy and environmental policies.
That has added to the tension to the industry, as has Biden’s proposal to remove tax credits from the oil industry and provide additional ones to solar and wind-power companies.
But most economists agree that it is no longer viable for states to rely on oil. The world is projected to run out of oil by 2030 and other fossil fuels by 2050.
By expanding use of renewable resources, the country could support its economy through “green growth” initiatives. The World Economic Forum says that renewable energy is now cheaper than coal-fired power plants, and half of solar and wind installations undercut fossil fuels in price in 2019.
Sales are soaring at electric car companies like Tesla, General Motors and Ford also are planning to move beyond gasoline engines. GM announced earlier this year that its plans to be carbon neutral by 2040, providing electric vehicles and sourcing renewable energy.
“We just see this as kind of a transition where we need to do things, try to do things cleaner, do things smarter,” Courreges said.
He added: “Yes, renewables are the future, it’s just how long in the future and how fast can we get there without putting a lot of people out of work that can’t find a new job.”

April 6, 2005 ~ April 18, 2021

ABBEVILLE — Funeral services will be held at 11:00 AM on Thursday, April 22, 2021 at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville honoring the life of Logan Michael Trahan, 16, who died April 18, 2021, at Abbeville General Hospital. He will be laid to rest at St. Paul Cemetery with Deacon Tim Marcantel officiating the services. Pallbearers will be Luke Trahan, Daniel Trahan, Randall Trahan, Tre Mott, Austin Stelly, and Charidy Delcambre.
He is survived by his brother, Luke Trahan; parents, Randall and Chassidy Trahan; uncles, Daniel Trahan and his wife Theresa, and Charidy Delcambre and his companion Brandy Walker “Aunt B”; four sisters, Celeste Hardy, Kayla Marceaux, Alyssa Trahan, and Lainey Trahan; maternal grandparents, Debra Fabino and Mark Delcambre; and godmother, Cory Delcambre.
He was preceded in death by his paternal grandparents, Glennwood Trahan, Rose Trahan, and Virginia Mire.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville, 209 S. St. Charles St., on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 from 10:00 AM until 10:00 PM with a rosary being prayed at 7:00 PM; Thursday, April 22, 2021 from 8:00 AM until time of services.
Condolences may be sent to the family at www.vincentfuneralhome.net.
All funeral arrangements are being conducted by Vincent Funeral Home of Abbeville, (337) 893-4661.

LAFAYETTE — Hunter Lepretre, a junior at McNeese State University, has been chosen as the first student selected for a research internship with the LSU AgCenter through an endowment established by the family of Charles and Rose Broussard.
Lepretre will begin the paid internship in May at the H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station, working in the agronomy research project under Dustin Harrell, LSU AgCenter agronomist and resident coordinator of the Rice Research Station.
A 2019 graduate of Gueydan High School, Lepretre is majoring in natural resources conservation management and general agriculture. With an interest in forages, but open to multiple career possibilities, he believes the internship will allow him to learn more about research in general.
“This gives me a chance to see everything that’s going on,” Lepretre said.
Lepretre developed a strong agricultural background while growing up on a cattle farm in Vermilion Parish, where he showed pigs and cattle in 4-H. He was chosen as Vermilion Parish Premier Exhibitor three times, has worked on farms and ranches and has participated in several wildlife research projects.
Kurt Guidry, director of the LSU AgCenter Southwest Region, said student workers are hired at the Rice Research Station every summer to help with research projects. He credited the Broussard children for their commitment to carrying on their parents’ legacy in making the internship viable.
“I think this is going to be a step up from a typical student worker job,” Guidry said. “And it wouldn’t be possible without the general support the Broussard’s have given to the program.”
Charles and Rose Broussard owned the Flying J Ranch in Vermilion Parish with a large cattle and rice farm. They were both active in numerous agricultural and civic organizations with a lifelong commitment to 4-H.
The four Broussard children believe the internship will help carry on the legacy of their parents’ commitment to agriculture and education.
“It’s a wonderful memory of our parents and encourages future generations to participate in what our parents did,” Richard Broussard said.
Broussard’s sister, Yvonne Broussard Simon, a 4-H leader in Vermilion Parish, echoed his sentiments on the internship program’s lasting effects. “It motivates our youth to keep going in agriculture,” Broussard Simon said.
Their siblings, Alan and Hal Broussard, see the internship as a continuation of the Broussard legacy.
“This was inspired by knowing our parents’ history in agriculture,” Alan said.
Hal added, “Supporting agriculture was their life.”