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Junior Achievement of North Louisiana announces Junior Achievement Laureates

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Junior Achievement of North Louisiana announces Junior Achievement Laureates


SHREVEPORT, La. – The Junior Achievement of North Louisiana introduced their Junior Achievement Laureates on Wednesday.

The Junior Achievement of North Louisiana mentioned the laureates encourage and put together younger folks to achieve a worldwide financial system.

These honored included, retired CPA, Lennis S.Elston, President of the Romph Pou company, Robert G. Pou, and President and CEO of Fibrebond, Graham Walker.

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Louisiana’s oldest death row inmate dies less than month before execution date

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Louisiana’s oldest death row inmate dies less than month before execution date


A terminally ill man who spent over 30 years on death row in Louisiana for the killing of his stepson died days after a March date was scheduled for his execution by nitrogen gas.

Christopher Sepulvado, 81, died Saturday at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, “from natural causes as a result of complications arising from his pre-existing medical conditions,” according to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

He was the oldest of the 57 inmates on death row as the state weighed resuming executions after a 15-year pause, CBS affiliate WWL-TV reported.

Sepulvado was charged with the 1992 killing of his 6-year-old stepson after the boy came home from school with soiled underwear. Sepulvado was accused of hitting him on the head with a screwdriver and immersing him in scalding water. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1993.

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His attorney, federal public defender Shawn Nolan, said in a statement Sunday that doctors recently determined Sepulvado was terminally ill and recommended hospice care. Nolan described his client’s “significant” physical and cognitive decline in recent years.

“Christopher Sepulvado’s death overnight in the prison infirmary is a sad comment on the state of the death penalty in Louisiana,” Nolan said. “The idea that the state was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric.”

According to Nolan, Sepulvado had been sent to New Orleans for surgery earlier in the week but was returned to the prison Friday night. According to WWL-TV, Sepulvado’s health had sharply declined, and COPD and gangrene led to a recent leg amputation.

Louisiana officials decided to resume carrying out death sentences earlier this month after a 15 year pause driven by a lack of political interest and the inability to secure legal injection drugs. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry pushed to proceed with a new nitrogen gas execution protocol after the state’s GOP-dominated Legislature last year expanded death row execution methods to include electrocution and nitrogen gas.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement that “justice should have been delivered long ago for the heinous act of brutally beating then scalding to death a defenseless six-year-old boy.”

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Louisiana Nitrogen Death Penalty
Death Row building at the Louisiana State Penitentiary Friday, Sept. 18, 2009, in Angola, La.

Judi Bottoni / AP


Murrill added that Louisiana failed to deliver justice in his lifetime “but Christopher Sepulvado now faces ultimate judgment before God in the hereafter.”

Sepulvado’s execution was scheduled for March 17. Another man, Jessie Hoffman, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and slated for execution on March 18. Hoffman initially challenged Louisiana’s lethal injection protocol in 2012 on the grounds that the method was cruel and unusual punishment. A federal judge on Friday reopened that lawsuit after it was dismissed in 2022 because the state had no executions planned.

The country’s first execution using nitrogen gas was carried out last year in Alabama, which has now executed four people using the method.

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Louisiana man with execution date next month dies at Angola

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Louisiana man with execution date next month dies at Angola


A federal appellate court this week refused to throw out a ban on housing incarcerated youth at Angola. (Photo credit: Jarvis DeBerry/Louisiana Illuminator)

Christopher Sepulvado, the 81-year-old man who was facing execution next month for the 1992 murder of his stepson, died overnight at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, according to his attorney.

Shawn Nolan, who had represented Sepulvado, said was sent to a New Orleans hospital last week for a leg amputation. Doctors instead sent him back to Angola, and it is believed the infection ultimately claimed Sepulvado’s life, according to Cecelia Kappel, another attorney representing death row clients.

Doctors had previously determined Sepulvado, who had multiple serious ailments, was terminally ill and recommended hospice care at the time a judge set his execution date for March 17, according to Nolan.

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“Christopher Sepulvado’s death overnight in the prison infirmary is a sad comment on the state of the death penalty in Louisiana,” Nolan said in a statement. “The idea that the State was planning to strap this tiny, frail, dying old man to a chair and force him to breathe toxic gas into his failing lungs is simply barbaric.”

Sepulvado would have the first person Louisiana put to death using nitrogen hypoxia, a method state lawmakers and Gov. Jeff Landry approved last year. The death penalty hasn’t been carried out in Louisiana since 2010, when Gerald Bordelon, 47, received a lethal injection for the kidnapping and murder of his 12-year-old stepdaughter, Courtney LeBlanc, in Livingston Parish.

Next on Louisiana’s execution calendar is Jessie Hoffman, 46, who was sentenced to die for the 1996 rape and murder of 28-year-old Mary “Molly” Elliot. Authorities said Hoffman abducted Elliot in downtown New Orleans and brought her to St. Tammany Parish, where he raped and murdered her, leaving her body in a remote area near the Pearl River.   

Hoffman is scheduled to die March 18, though attorneys are challenging Louisiana’s new execution method in court on behalf of 10 death row inmates. There are currently 57 people facing the death penalty in the state.

DeSoto Parish Judge Amy Burford McCartney issued a death warrant Feb. 12 for Sepulvado for the killing of  6-year-old Wesley Allen Mercer. Police said the boy was beaten and scalded to death. His mother, Yvonne Jones, was convicted of manslaughter and served more than seven years in prison. 

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Sepulvado was previously scheduled to die by lethal injection in 2013, but his attorney successfully argued that Louisiana officials could not provide enough information on the drugs being used to execute him. The lack of those details constituted cruel and unusual punishment, a federal judge ruled.

Multiple execution dates for Sepulvado have since been handed down and subsequently suspended as lawyers for him and other death row inmates have challenged the use of lethal injection.

Sepulvado’s motion for reconsideration was denied in November 2022, but U.S. District Judge Shelley Dick, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, agreed Friday to reopen the case. 

This is a developing story.

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Nicholls to host Louisiana’s Restoration Generation Coastal Summit

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Nicholls to host Louisiana’s Restoration Generation Coastal Summit


Nicholls State University is going to host a big first in the continued fight to raise awareness in our state’s continued fight against coastal erosion.

Nicholls will host the inaugural Louisiana’s Restoration Generation Coastal Summit on March 12, 2025 in the Cotillion Ballroom.

The event will be hosted from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m. and it is sponsored by Restore the Mississippi River Delta and the Nicholls Mass Communication Department. The event aims to explore issues related to conservation in Coastal Louisiana while inspiring the next generation of coastal advocates.

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During the day, there will be presentations, panel discussions, coastal and cultural vendors, live Cajun music and more.

Bren Haase is the executive director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program. Haase will deliver a keynote presentation on ‘Restoration in the Barataria and Terrebonne Estuaries.’

The panels will include ‘The People of our Coast,’ ‘Careers in Coastal Restoration,’ and ‘Louisiana’s Restoration Generation: Students Making an Impact.’

“We are thrilled to partner with Nicholls State University for the first Coastal Summit. This event is a fantastic opportunity for students to learn about Louisiana’s land loss crisis and discover solutions they can directly plug into to help, while also exploring careers in coastal restoration. By engaging in these critical discussions, these students are standing up for their coast— helping to drive meaningful discussions that can help shape the future of Louisiana’s coast,” said Emily Guidry Schatzel, senior communications manager for Restore the Mississippi River Delta.

Attendees can register and secure their spot at the event at Nicholls.edu/maco/coastal-summit.

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Registration is not required, but it is encouraged. Registrants will receive a conference bag, discounted Louisiana-themed lunch in the Vernon F. Galliano Dining Hall and entry into a raffle drawing.

The summit is free and the public is invited to attend. Pre-registration at the above-listed website closes on March 6.

The inaugural Summit is part of a service learning project for students who are studying Environmental Communication, Global Communication and Public Relations.

Louisiana’s Restoration Generation is a movement of college students who aim to engage the college student population on issues of concern in Coastal Louisiana, while encouraging students to explore career paths in restoration industries. They also aim to inspire students to become conservation advocates for Coastal Louisiana.

It is part of the Nancy Sanderson Matherne Institute for Global Communication in the Nicholls Department of Mass Communication

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“Communication on coastal issues is something important to us in the Department of Mass Communication. We see this as an opportunity to give our students important real-world experience while making an impactful difference for our community and our state,” said Nicki Boudreaux, assistant professor of Mass Communication and director of the NSM Institute for Global Communication. “This is our opportunity to create a movement.”

For more information, contact nicki.boudreaux@nicholls.edu.



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