Inside Report for November 4, 2009

• By C.J. FUTCH
• Advocate River parishes bureau
• Published: Nov 4, 2009 - Page: 9B

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The Ascension Parish School Board broke ground in October on what will become Sorrento Primary School in early 2011. It was a proud moment for Sorrento Mayor Blake LeBlanc. Sorrento students have been bused out of town to schools in St. Amant since The Sorrento School, the last public school in the town limits, closed in the 1930s.

It’s the start of big things for Sorrento, Parish President Tommy Martinez said at the ceremony.

The school, in many respects, represents the center of civic identity for the town.

Sorrento still takes pride in its small-town roots, as evidenced by its distinction as Boucherie Capital of the World.

(It’s actually the co-capital of Boucherie, a title granted by the Louisiana Legislature, and one it has shared with Marksville since the early 1980s.)

Boucherie is the practice of hog-slaughtering, a tradition that goes back to early French settlers to south Louisiana.

When the weather turned cool, residents gathered as a community to prepare and preserve the meat that would help them survive the winter months, according to the Sorrento Lions Club Web site.

It’s a tradition Sorrento has celebrated in an organized way since 1978 with the Boucherie Festival, held each year in the second full weekend of October.

Just as the growth of Ascension Parish school enrollments means a new school for Sorrento, the growth of those enrollments will have another unintended consequence for the town, especially where the festival is concerned.

The school system’s Planning and Construction Department, largely responsible for the school renovations about to begin across the parish, has run out of warehouse space.

Department Director Chad Lynch told the School Board’s Strategic Planning Committee the  warehouse is filled, a problem that will only get worse as the school system begins planned renovations to 20 campuses starting in January.

The school system owns the Ascension Civic Center, the venue in Sorrento where the Boucherie Festival has typically been held.

“The warehouse we use now is too small,”  Superintendent Donald Songy told the committee.