Branding St. Landry Parish

A branding campaign for St. Landry Parish — “We’re Moving Forward” — was discussed Tuesday at a meeting of the St. Landry Parish Economic Industrial Development District’s board of directors.
The campaign is to stress positive things happening in St. Landry Parish, Bill Rodier, district executive director, said.
Many people do not think St. Landry Parish is moving forward, he said.
Rodier pointed out there are new roads, cultural opportunities and progress in education.
“Everything isn’t bad in our parish K-12 system,” he said. “There are a lot of good things, but we tend to hear about the bad things that are happening.”
The campaign’s initial partners are St. Landry Economic Development, St. Landry Parish Government, St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission, St. Landry Parish School Board, St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Department, St. Landry Parish Chamber of Commerce, Louisiana State University Eunice, South Louisiana Community College T.H. Harris Campus and St. Landry Parish Solid Waste.
“What we’ve done, we identified the nine and there is more to us, but the initial primary entities in leadership organizations in St. Landry Parish that all have positive stories to tell, that all have good things to tell about collectively coming together with a plan and a strategy based on that laid down by a public relations firm,” he said.
More partners will be added as the program develops, he said.
Rodier said as positive events occur, signage will be place the site and a story will be written to placed on a website.
Former Opelousas Daily World reporter William Johnson and historical columnist Jim Bradshaw are to write stories for the campaign, he said. Two stories a week are planned, he said.
“We’ve been told by people at the state they have never seen a parish come together in a leadership perspective with this level and this many entities to tell its good stories collectively,” he said.
“Not to say we are trying to control the message that is being sent by the press ... but in a sense we are trying to tell the positive and we are trying to bring the positives up about every single entity...” he said.
The result will be a unifying and consistent message, he said.
“Even the people that say we are not moving forward are going to have to take a look a these signs that they see all over St. Landry Parish and they are going to say, ‘Got to be something moving forward because I see these signs everywhere and these articles telling us about things moving forward.’”
The branding campaign is scheduled for a formal launch in mid-August.
Also poised to start is a GIS mapping system the first of September. The mapping system offers users information over the Internet in a multi-layered map presentation.
The economic board also learned the ownership of a 100-foot long section of former railroad line along the Harry Guilbeau Economic Development District is in question.
The property is the site of the proposed Crowne Parc Community, which includes an event center.
In other action, the board elected Lynn Lejeune to the board and Gary Soileau as treasurer.