Across the River
This past March 3 marked the 44th anniversary of the St. James High School fire. The three-level school built in the 1930’s was destroyed by fire on March 3, 1980. I had been involved in newspaper work for three years and was putting the weekly paper together on Monday when I received a call from a friend from Thibodaux who noticed the smoke when she passed by. She went back to Blue’s Grocery to use their phone to call and let me know. I grabbed my camera and left immediately. I arrived at about the same time as the fire department. I took many pictures and stood there in disbelief as people came from throughout the area to watch their school burn. That was years before the first cell phones, so I used the phone at the home of Jude and Ruth Reulet on the school campus. I notified the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate and called WCKW radio to alert them to breaking news. I was the person on the scene for them and did a report for them while connected to the landline in the Reulet home. We don’t often think of how these events affect others but there was a St. James High Class that went to school for four years in portable buildings spread out on the school’s front lawn.
