Pearl River FHA Members in 1961

 Sixty-five years ago, in 1961, a photo of the officers of the Pearl River Junior High Future Homemakers of America appeared in the St. Tammany Tribune newspaper. Here are their photos. Click on the image below to make it larger. 

Nursery Industry is "Green Gold"

 In 1961 Fred C. Darragh with the St. Tammany Tribune newspaper gave a great overview of the growing landscape nursery industry in St. Tammany Parish. Click on the article below to make it larger and more readable. 

Text from the above column:

COVINGTON BEAT With Fred C. Darragh

Have you ever seen canned gold?

Well, I have -- thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of the stuff, stretching in row upon orderly row as far as the eye could see. I have watched, as the cans containing it were carefully loaded aboard huge transport trailers destined to fan out over a twenty seven state area in the first leg of a journey that would scatter ST. TAMMANY'S GREEN GOLD over practically every state in the union, as well as many foreign countries.

The GREEN GOLD. of course, is the product of the many commercial nurseries which have quietly, without chest-pounding or fan-fare, contributed a multi-million dollar business to the economic growth of St. Tammany Parish.

Commercial buyers visit our local nurseries in all seasons, eager and anxious to exchange good cash money for the broad leaf evergreens that are cultivated here. They come hunting Holly. Arbor Vitae, Crepe Myrtle. Juniper, Ligustrum, Gardenias. Magnolias, Photenias, Ilex, Cherry Laurels. Hibiscus, Azaleas, Sansanquas and camellias, and dispatch heavily laden transports to points as far North as Chicago (Montgomery Ward and other catalog houses are big customers), South to Miami, West to Texas and Oklahoma, and East to the Atlantic states.

The average citizen of St. Tammany is unaware of the tremendous scope of the local nursery industry, because most of its business is wholesale, and its leaders are entirely too busy to do much bragging on their importance.

AND THEY ARE IMPORTANT -- MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT THAT!

The several thousand acres in cultivation represent a capital investment of a good many hundred thousand dollars. even at the most conservative estimate.

Building is constantly in progress; tractors and other equipment wear out and must be replaced; plants must be fed, and watered, and babied through droughts and cold spells, and protected from "varments" of field and air. In every operation, the nurserymen's dollar takes firm root in local business, while the hundreds of people that they employ add materially to the general prosperity.

An overwhelming majority of the parish nurseries are state registered, with their owners going to Baton Rouge on one of the two dates set annually, for examinations in nursery management and plant culture, the passing of which will qualify their firms to ship beyond State lines.

All are members of the Southeast Louisiana Nurserymen's Association, and many belong to the Louisiana State Horticultural Association, and the National Association of Nurserymen, whose strong lobby (headed by an extremely well paid and efficient secretary) protect the interests of nurserymen throughout the nation.

Our nurserymen are leaders in church and civic activities, devoting both dollars and effort to the improvement of their local communities, and through State (two of which Covington and Abita Springs have hosted) and national conventions, have proven themselves extremely fine ambassadors of good will for their home parish.

All of which is a far cry from the year of 1903 when Mr. Henry McKee, popularly credited with pioneering the nursery business in St. Tammany. started selling fruit trees on a commission basis for a Georgia firm. Visualizing the possibilities inherent in the mild climate and generous rainfall of the area, he started cultivation of his own plants, and through a long course of trial and error, laid a firm foundation for the present thriving industry.

St. Tammany may well be proud that it can boast of what is probably the largest commercial nursery in the state, and one of the most modernly equipped in the nation, as well as what is claimed to be the world's largest "lath house" -- all of which I hope to take up in another column in the very near future.

St. Tammany Tribune, December 8, 1961

Retired Principal Honored

In 1962 the teachers at Covington Elementary School got together for a luncheon honoring their Principal S. E. Talley, who had recently retired. Click on the image below to make it larger. 

Historic Resources of Covington

 In April of 2018 a Historic Resources Survey Report was prepared for Covington by Cox-McLain Environmental Consulting of Austin, TX. It contained 63 pages of detailed information about the history of the Covington community, complete with photographs, maps, and photos of houses illustrating specific architectural styles. 

To view a PDF Version of the report click on the link below:

"Covington's Historic Resources PDF"

Table of Contents (Click on above pages to make them larger)

Covington Booklet 1911

 In June of 1911, the "Association of Commerce" put out a booklet filled with photographs and text extolling the virtues of Covington and the surrounding area. Here are some pages from that booklet. A photocopy was provided by Noel Marsolan.

Click on the images to make them larger. 

Columbia Landing

St. Tammany Ice & Manufacturing Co. 

Covington Grocery & Grain

Ox Lots

St. Paul's School

Oil Well Drilling

Church Histories

Southern Hotel History

St. Tammany Canning Club

The St. Tammany Trolley

Fenwick Sanitarium

For a downloadable PDF copy of the booklet, 

CLICK HERE

Parish Fair 2011 Opening Ceremonies

 From 15 years ago, below is a short video of the opening ceremonies of the 2011 St. Tammany Parish Fair in Covington. 

Click here to view the video on YouTube

Gail Hood Exhibit at Christwood Atrium

 A "Gail Hood Retrospective" art exhibit opened at the Atrium Gallery in Christwood Retirement Community Saturday evening, with close to 100 people turning out for the special occasion. 

Exhibit Curator Ann Loomis introduced Gail at the podium, and the crowd in attendance was treated to stories of her background, her accomplishments in the field of art, and a detailed explanation, painting by painting, of the artwork hanging on the walls.

Gail Hood and Ann Loomis
Click on the photographs to make them larger. 

Hood attended Folsom Grammar School, St. Scholastica and Covington High School. She studied art at Beaux-Arts in Rouen, France, Carleton College in Minnesota, and received an MBA in painting from Columbia University. In addition, she attended summer schools at Pratt, The School of the Art Institute in Chicago and Tulane University in New Orleans. When her paintings of cows were rejected in New York, she noted that the streets there were bulging with Abstract Expressionism and emerging Pop Art. "So I moved right on to Abstract Expressionism. They loved it," she said. 

Gail Hood details her career as an artist and art educator

Her first job was teaching art at Florida State University. She returned to Louisiana in 1962. She married Henry Hood and got a job at the mental hospital in Mandeville. She then got teaching opportunities at St. Scholastica and Mandeville High School and was later hired by Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, to teach drawing, color design, and painting (at all levels), as well as the history of  modern art. A university grant allowed her to take many photographs of Pine Island, followed by extensive photography at the Joyce Wildlife Preserve (accompanied by Barbara Tardo) and at the Tickfaw State Park. In 2002 she received a sabbatical to paint in France. Much of her work was based on photographs taken at those locations. 

Her paintings at the Atrium Exhibit were on loan from a wide variety of private collections and deal mostly with St. Tammany scenes, with a few from Louisiana coastal waters and France. She said they are arranged in chronological order around the room. 

"My final real project was of Louisiana's barrier islands," she said, noting that two of those are in the current exhibit.  

Hood was the first exhibit shown at the Christwood Atrium when Ann Loomis began serving as curator for the gallery 15 years ago, and Loomis said that since this would be the her last exhibit as curator, she felt it was only fitting that a "retrospective" of Gail's work would be the way to go. Loomis was quoted in the local newspaper as saying, "Gail is truly a northshore treasure, admired and loved by so many. Her work resonates deeply within the community and has been collected throughout the region, a testament both to her artistic vision and the genuine connection she creates through her art."

The exhibit will be on display through May 30. 

In the 1960's Gail Hood was active with the St. Tammany Art Association and Playmakers Inc., both on stage and backstage designing sets on numerous productions. She taught several classes at the art association and took part in the annual Juried Art Show at the Primate Center. She also participated in a number of art events at St. Scholastica Academy, where she was an instructor. Hood also served as a judge in several area art contests.

Here are some newspaper clippings from some of her community involvements. Click on the articles to make them larger and more readable. 

Above is a photograph taken in the 1970's showing Gail Hood in the upper left. Henry Hood is at the upper right. The event was a gathering behind Henry Hood's office on Columbia Street. 

A photo from 1968

In 1976, some 50 years ago, she was to serve as a judge for the
Mandeville Bicentennial Art Exhibit.

Gail's mother was Arlene Johnson, who served as director of the St. Tammany Dept. of Public Welfare for many years. 

Newspaper clippings from earlier in her life.

In 1941 Gail took part  in the Louisiana Tung Festival as a "crown bearer" for the Festival Queen, and during her grammar school years was active in the 4-H Club. In 1950 she was a piano student of Jonette Dunning.