Crawfish festival prepares to turn 50

• By STEVEN K. LANDRY
• Special to The Advocate
• Published: Jan 5, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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BREAUX BRIDGE — It’ll take about a year to tell the colorful tale of breaking tails.

The original Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival will turn 50 in 2010, and locals and volunteers — as well as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Cinematic Arts Workshop — are making yearlong plans to celebrate this area’s preferred crustacean with an hour-long documentary and a historical archive.

Officials here and at ULL are asking for old film, photos and other memorabilia pertaining to the Crawfish Festival and the Creole or Crustacean festivals, the latter two of which occasionally ran simultaneously with the main festival during previous years.

Beginning March 1, ULL archivist Conni Castille will interview subjects about their memories of the festivals. The interviews will take place at the Coffee Break along Main Street, said Byron Blanchard, current Breaux Bridge Crawfish Festival Association treasurer and former president.

“We want to know what went on when their family came back to town for this festival,” Blanchard said. “It’s not unlike a holiday, where you say, ‘Let’s go back to mama’s house,’ or grandma or grandpa, or your aunt and uncle. Everybody has a story — ‘I remember this. I remember when it was downtown in the streets.’ So let’s tell this story while they (older residents) are still here.”

Phase I of the “Crawfish Archive Project” has a budget of $36,309, Castille, ULL Cinematic Arts assistant director, said recently.

The BBCFA has pledged $14,659, the ULL Cinematic Arts Workshop is putting up equipment with a use-value of $4,150 and the state Division of the Arts Folklife Implementation grant, which Castille wrote, provides $17,500.

More state monies could pay for the remainder of the project, she said.

The eventual cost for the 30- to 60-minute documentary could be as much as $120,000.

Castille said she prefers to allow the story to flow through personal testimonials.

The 2010 festival is not literally the 50th festival, as it was held in alternate years until the early 1990s, when it also moved from downtown to Parc Hardy along Rees Street.

The first crawfish celebration coincided with the Breaux Bridge Centennial back in mid-April 1959. Crawfish was a main staple at that event.

Previously, on March 4, 1959, the Legislature deemed Breaux Bridge the “Crawfish Capital of the World.”