Former State Senator A. G. Crowe visited with the Pearl River Town Council the night of Tuesday, March 15, 2022, to present officials with copies of a cartoon map of Pearl River I drew a few years ago.
From left to right are Mayor Joe Lee, A.G. Crowe, John Babin, and Ron Barthet. Crowe has a website called https://shoplocalusa.com/ that features a dozen or so of my maps. Crowe lives in the Pearl River area, where his family has been for many years.
Crowe told the town council the story of how we first met, back in 1984, when I was in Slidell drawing the first cartoon map there. I stopped into his store St. Tammany Office Products, and he also saw the potential in the maps of promoting local community history and business interests. We did several maps of local towns, and then he got elected a state representative and later a state senator, so it kept him pretty busy.
After he retired, he decided to take up the map business again, signed me up to do a few more maps, and we digitized the whole operation, taking it from printed maps to online maps with links joining the pictured cartoon buildings to websites of various community landmarks and commercial establishments.
But the printed maps are still very popular, as shown in this picture of his giving a 2 foot by 3 foot poster map to the elected officials on the Pearl River council.
Crowe has presented several large scale maps to officials across the parish, the Covington city council, the Mandeville city council, and Slidell chamber of commerce officials.
See also
Destination Downtown
Madisonville Map 2017
Pictorial Maps Presented
Shop Local USA
In other cartoon map news, it's ChefSoiree time again, with the gala annual event set for next Sunday, March 20, at Bogue Falaya Park in Covington. The Youth Service Bureau asked me to do the cartoon map for the restaurant locations again this year, so here is a sneak peek at the map production video...
Click on the "play triangle" above to view the video
The ChefSoiree, now in its 38th year, is an annual fund-raising event for the Youth Service Bureau, an agency that provides youth counseling, parent counseling, and court representation services for young people.
Children's Museum Map
And in the last bit of cartoon map news this week, I stopped by the Children's Museum of St. Tammany recently to see how my large scale cartoon map of the parish was holding up. I drew it last year and they enlarged it a couple of months ago and attached it to the wall inside the entrance of the museum for kids (and their parents) to look at as they visit. That map showcases the Tammany Trace Rails to Trails recreational bike trail (that passes right by in front of the children's museum.)
So here's a picture of the map with somebody standing next to it to give you an idea of the size of the map.
The museum attendant at the front desk told me it has been really helpful in pointing out to parents how to get to the various children's tourist attractions across the parish. One father asked her how to get to Abita Springs from the children's museum, and she just walked over to the map and pointed to the route. So it's good to know that it is also functioning as a real map.
See also:
Globemaker Bill Kiermaier
Childrens Museum of St. Tammany
Children's Museum Offers Natural Wonders Section
