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October 28, 1933 ~ December 6, 2020

ABBEVILLE — Graveside services will be held at 10:00 AM on Thursday, December 10, 2020 at St. Paul Cemetery honoring the life of Nona Hutchinson, 87, who died Sunday, December 6, 2020 at Eastridge Nursing Center. She will be laid to rest at St. Paul Cemetery with Deacon William “Billy” Vincent officiating the services.
Nona is survived by her sons, Paul Hebert and his wife Mary, Randall Hebert and Charles Hebert; daughters, Debra Hebert, Donna Rogers and her husband Daniel and Lona Hutchinson and her husband Larry; step-son, Harlow Hutchinson; step-daughter, Wanda Primeaux and her husband Paul; sisters, Florence Richard and Beverly Nichols; daughter-in-law, Loli Hebert; twenty-three grandchildren; and twenty-eight great grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband, Harold Hutchinson; parents, Luah Richard and the former Beulah Porter; sons, Gordon Joseph Hebert and Russell Wayne Hebert, brothers, Preston Richard, Johnny Richard and Donald Richard; step son, Hugh Hutchinson; and a sister, Laura Mae Hebert.
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.

CROWLEY — State Police are investigating an officer-involved shooting that left one man injured here Monday afternoon.
The incident occurred at about 5:15 p.m. in the parking lot at the Walgreens Pharmacy at the intersection of Odd Fellows and Tower roads.
According to Police Chief Jimmy Broussard, the incident began at the Walmart Supercenter across the street from Walgreens. The suspect apparently fled the Walmart store after allegedly committing a misdemeanor.
The suspect entered the parking lot at the pharmacy and allegedly rammed his vehicle into five other vehicles, including a Crowley Police unit.
The officer fired one shot at the suspect, grazing him, according to Broussard. The suspect sustained minor injuries and was taken to a local hospital and treated.
The owners of the vehicles struck were all inside Walgreens at the time. Only the suspect was injured, Broussard said.
State Police were called to take over the investigation.
“Our investigation begins at the use of force,” said Trooper First Class Thomas Gossen, Troop I public information officer.
Gossen said the crashes that occurred in the parking lot will be investigated by the Acadia Parish Sheriff’s Office.

There are constitutional rules on how prisons are operated, how zoning laws must be drafted and what rights members of the LGBT community must be accorded; however, there are no rules regarding modern voting machines, as well as the hardware and software used to tabulate votes.
Clearly, some constitutional rules should apply to these machines because they control our most basic rights, which includes the right to vote and the right to have it counted honestly.
It must surely be considered unconstitutional for a municipality to utilize voting machines that allow poll workers to switch a vote if they thought a mistake was made. Poll workers cannot be allowed to hack into the machine's hardware or software and reverse a vote just because they thought a voter hit the wrong button.
Consequently, the idea that there must be constitutional rules regarding both the hardware and the software used in voting machines is not far-fetched, and indeed, its implementation is now obviously long overdue.
Millions of Americans have been closely following the President’s legal challenges to the 2020 election. The reams of evidence the President’s team have compiled indicates severe problems with the hardware and software used to cast and count votes. The focus has been on several swing states, but the problems might be prevalent across the country.
It seems possible to not only change votes, but also to disregard votes and create large batches of phony votes out of thin air.
How else can we explain systems that mail out ballots to dead people? Or that mail out six ballots to an address where two people reside? Or that allow an envelope with a signature to be separated from the actual ballot before the signature has been meaningfully examined - by representatives of both political parties?
How else can we explain a system that awards a massive batch of almost 600,000 votes to former Vice President Joe Biden while simultaneously adding a mere 3,000 votes to President Donald Trump? Witnesses have testified that this is exactly what happened in Pennsylvania in the wee hours after Election Night 2020. Does anyone doubt that such a system is highly suspect, if not totally corrupt?
Indeed, such a ridiculous ratio of votes favoring one candidate over another is prima facie evidence that the system which produced this result is too easily tampered with, either physically or via the internet. Any teenage hacker can attest that almost all computer systems are vulnerable.
Are Americans blind to this reality? There have been numerous examples of computer systems of our largest and most secure institutions, such as banks, municipal governments and even the Pentagon being hacked. Accordingly, if our voting systems are connected to the Internet, they can easily be hacked, and our precious votes can be manipulated. It should not be constitutionally permissible to transmit voting totals across the world wide web.
Now if the proper time for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene and fix this travesty. It can list certain minimum constitutional requirements that voting machines and their software must satisfy. At the very least, for future elections, the outrageous and dangerous spectacle we are witnessing in the 2020 election will not be repeated.
If this important action is not taken, large sectors of the American public will eventually lose all faith in the honesty of our voting system. This would result in the death of our constitutional republic and the United States of America would officially become a banana republic.
This action can be separate and apart from the ongoing challenges of the 2020 election. Clearly, there is overwhelming proof of fraud in multiple states that resulted in the supposed victory of Joe Biden in the presidential race. The President’s legal team may be successful, or they may ultimately fail. However, no matter who becomes President, it does not change the need to fix our voting systems to insure confidence in future elections.
The 74 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump this year have lost all confidence in our electoral system. We need to ensure that the high level of distrust this past election produced will not have to be tolerated ever again in our country.
If school desegregation could be ordered "with all deliberate speed" in the Brown vs. Board of Education case, then surely, we can urge similar speed to mandate the use of honest and secure voting machines. Saving the greatest constitutional republic in the history of the world requires nothing less.

Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on Crouere.net. For more information, email him at jeff@ringsidepolitics.com

June 10, 1944 ~ December 4, 2020

ERATH — A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 1:00 PM on Thursday, December 10, 2020 at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church - Erath honoring the life of Aveneal Joseph Meaux Jr., 76, who died Friday, December 4, 2020 at his residence. He will be laid to rest at St. Paul Cemetery with Fr. Andre Metrejean officiating the services. Pallbearers will be Brian Goutierrez, Trey d’Augereau, Logan Issa, Ty Broussard, Jorge Villasenor, and Dylan Castille.
Aveneal was a devoted husband and father who loved his family deeply.  He loved God and Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church where he was active with the Festivals des Famillies d’ Erath. He was a member of the Erath of Knights of Columbus #3872 and honorary member of the Erath volunteer Fire Dept.  He was a verteran of the United States Navy. He worked for over 50 years for Bay City Ford which is now Courtesy Ford South.
Aveneal (Pop) as many called him was very well known and loved within the community and he will be truly missed!! Pop truly loved people and never met a stranger! One of the things that he really loved, were his gentleman’s suppers. He loved football and was a huge Saints, LSU, and UL fan.
He leaves to cherish his loving wife of 53 years, Dona of Abbeville; one son, Bobby Meaux (Lisa); two daughters, Shelly Meaux, and Tonya Goutierrez (Brian); one brother, Billy Meaux (Dianna); one sister Tina Hebert (Bobby); grandchildren, Keith, Mandy, Leah, Megan, Jacqulyne, Dylan, Trey, Kensie, Lena, Logan; twelve great grandchildren and one on the way; four godchildren, Shane Meaux, Sabrina Kelley, Logan Issa, and Kaitlynn Choate; and a host of nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Aveneal Meaux, Sr. and the former Lillian Sellers; father-in-law and mother-in-law, John and Dorothy Schleicher; and brother-in-law, Robert Wismer.
The family requests that visiting hours be observed at Vincent Funeral Home - Abbeville, 209 S. St. Charles St., on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 from 10:00 AM until 9:00 PM with a rosary being prayed at 7:00 PM by Darryl Rabassa with the Erath- Knights of Columbus; Thursday, December 10, 2020 from 8:00 AM until 12:30 PM when the procession will depart for the church.
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.