Your 24 Favorite Stories of 2024

It’s been another thrilling year of discovery, celebration, and pure wonder here at Country Roads magazine. As December comes to a close, we once again relish in the opportunity to reflect on the highlights of our coverage—the stories of our region writ large during this particular moment in time. As the magazine’s editor, I’ve certainly got my favorite moments—Jeffery Darensbourg and John DePriest’s “The Music of the Rivercane” comes to mind, as does our newly appointed Arts & Entertainment Editor Jacqueline DeRobertis Braun’s “I Am Free When I Read”.

But thanks to the data provided by Google Analytics, we are able to see which stories you, our readers, were most drawn to this year. These included, naturally, Lauren Stroh’s afternoon with the nation’s most famous swamp tour guide-turned-pop-star-hubby; as well as a rollicking tale of moonshining and hauntings in Prairie Ronde. In this year’s February Music issue, we all learned more about Louisiana’s indigenous genres—rediscovering the rich histories of Louisiana French music, the swamp blues, and jazz; and in May we honed in on local arts scenes, and you celebrated several of our region’s most talented artists with us. Together, we tasted traditional French cuisine in Marksville and Lafayette, where we also met a new couple of bakers. We practiced our French in order to conquer fear, celebrated the revival of brown cotton textiles in Acadiana, and re-examined the history of Lafayette and its forebears at Maison Freetown. We tasted the tropical delight of the local PawPaw tree, and learned that, in the gardens, the vilified wasp can actually be our friend. And oh how we traveled, up the historic Jefferson Highway, out west to Texas fossil country, and to Grand Coteau where old train cars spur adventure and creativity. And more than any other story, you read and shared in the loss of one of our region’s most talented and beloved musicians, Christopher Stafford.

Thank you for another great year of storytelling. We look forward to all that 2025 will bring!

If your favorite story didn't make this list, or you want to revisit other stories from 2024, you can find our content all the way back to 2016 in our Issue Archive. If you'd like to continue to read these kinds of stories in 2024 (and beyond!), be sure to subscribe here.

24. Dispatches from Jeremy Dufrene's Airboat

Contemplating the sex appeal of the Cajun lifestyle and Lana Del Rey's new husband

Jeremy Dufrene has made international news over the past few months after he was photographed sharing a meal with the American soft-rock crooner Lana Del Rey in London, at Leeds Festival holding hands, and again leaving Karen Elson and Lee Foster’s nuptials during Fashion Week in New York.

The exact nature of the pair’s relationship has since become a source of intense public scrutiny and far-flung speculation, reaching readers of People, Billboard, The Cut, and the Daily Mail through a series of ambiguous headlines—bluntly, NOLA.com asks, “Is Lana Del Rey dating a Louisiana airboat tour guide?”

By Lauren Stroh

23. Looming Solastalgia 

How the revival of coton jaune is helping us to remember

Environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht defines "solastalgia" as “the homesickness you have when you are still at home”, and “the lived experience of negative environmental change”. In both of these definitions, the philosopher observes the collective emotion a group feels while watching its world decline due to man-made encroachment and exploitation on a massive scale. How does a community reclaim the ground of a place it no longer recognizes as its own? In the case of South Louisiana, perhaps part of this healing begins with a single brown cotton seed.

By Nathan Tucker

22. The Louisiana Music & Heritage Experience

New Orleans music advocates and those who brought us the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame have huge plans for a museum in New Orleans

Jazz, sometimes referred to as “America’s classical music,” was born right in New Orleans. Blues, by most accounts, sprung up nearby—and from it sprouted Baton Rouge’s particular brand of “swamp blues”. Further Southwest, Louisiana French music, zydeco, and swamp pop emerged; all indigenous to Louisiana, too. Even Shreveport has a too-often neglected strain of country, gospel, and big band music history. Louisiana’s cultural capital is largely derived from the wide breadth of music born from its swamps, prairies, and city centers. So, why don’t we have a museum dedicated to the many stories of Louisiana’s music?

It’s a question that New Orleans entrepreneur and social activist Chris Beary has wondered about for a long time. Now, he’s doing something about it, with plans barreling ahead to launch The Louisiana Music & Heritage Experience—a comprehensive, modern museum where exhibitions and programming will aim to tell the stories of the state’s music, educating visitors and championing the many musical legacies born in the Bayou State.

By Alexandra Kennon Shahin

21. St. Francisville Beautiful 

The West Feliciana community is coming together to create a supergarden

“There’s a psychology to flowers,” said David Parker, a floral designer in St. Francisville and owner of Stems Boutique Florist on Commerce Street. “Just seeing flowers, it has been established, can reduce stress and bring joy.”

It’s a philosophy that inspires Parker’s work as a florist, but also his vision for his community. As Chairman of the nonprofit organization St. Francisville Beautiful, Parker joins a cadre of other invested St. Francisville residents and business owners in the project of adorning the charmed, historic town with a “supergarden”.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

20. Boscoyo Baking Co. 

Meet Lafayette’s newest boulangers

“J’sus un boulanger,” said the young man with the beret, sitting in the back of our makeshift French classroom in a bridal shop in Broussard. His name tag read “Chris.” 

The teacher turned to his partner, the curly haired woman sitting beside him and asked, “Et tu, Haley? Quoi c’est tu fais comme ouvrage?” 

“J’sus un boulangere, aussi.” 

“Ohhh,” responded the rest of us, most of whom are still struggling through this new vocabulary. But even those of us in our deepest Cajun French infancy recognize, somehow, the word “boulangerie”. Bakers. 

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

19. 5 Baton Rouge Artists You Should Know

The Capital City Area is home to a flourishing population of artists and creatives. Here are just five of them, all offering intriguing and important work to the cultural landscape.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

18. The Funeral Singer

A New Orleans music story, told through the career of John "Deacon" Moore

John Moore closed his catechism, marched down the hallway and across the school yard to the church entrance. As he passed the depiction of Jesus’s suffering on the Stations of the Cross, he felt a combination of religious, social, and performance pressure. He thought: “They’re gonna make me sing ‘Amazing Grace’ and ‘Ave Maria’ in Latin.”

Those were his go-to funeral songs. Now Moore is eighty-two, and even after the enormous social, cultural, and musical changes endured by his hometown of New Orleans and the country writ large, they still are. Since the middle of the twentieth century, Moore, affectionately known as “Deacon John,” has lived a rather typical atypical life as, in his words, “a Creole of color, socialized as a Negro.”

By Cyril E. Vetter

17. "Tataille" 

What the Cajun Word Taught Me About Fear

"In addition to the data such herds can provide to the fields of animal science, they also offer a vital education about different species and the importance of their conservation to visitors and families who visit Global. Guests leave with ample information about giraffes and zebras and rare deer—and they also might get to experience the surge of serotonin that comes from being face-to-face with a giraffe, feeling the rare sense of connection as the remarkable animal snakes her long, purple tongue into a cup of food held in their hand. The animals provide entertainment, but also an awareness about endangered species that’s especially powerful for hands-on learners."

By Megan Broussard

16. Something's Happen in Clinton

A wave of revitalization has taken hold in this East Feliciana town

North of Baton Rouge, at the center of a conglomerate of rural communities, the seat of East Feliciana Parish sits quietly and quaintly—its iconic century-old water tower rising up past the spire of the two-hundred-year-old First Baptist church. Remnants of Antebellum-era opulence hold memory in the form of Greek Revival and Victorian Gothic architecture, including the Historic Courthouse on St. Helena, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is believed to be one of the oldest courthouses in continuous use in the state.

Like in so many rural Southern small towns, these monuments are flanked by abandoned buildings and shuttered windows, occupied by a dwindling, aging population migrating ever farther from the town’s center. Downtown Clinton has, for years, been a place of ghosts—without a steady sit-down restaurant or even a place to grab a coffee for a business meeting.

But, visit Clinton on the first Friday of the month—and you’ll see evidence of the quiet, cautious spark steadily burning through the downtown district.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

15. Following in the Footsteps of the Sauropod

Fossil hunting in the heart of Texas

“Look right here and tell me what you see,” said Morris Bussey, owner of the Stone Hut Fossil Shop in Glen Rose, Texas. My husband Paul, our three kids, and I formed a circle around a small area of dirt and rocks, and Bussey waited patiently while we gazed at the white rubble at our feet. It took a few minutes, but Paul finally lasered in on it—a small, but perfectly shaped ammonite, a coiled, shelled sea creature that went extinct 66 million years ago. Amazed at how Bussey spotted it within seconds, I asked what the trick was. He grinned. “You see rocks when you look at the ground, but I see only fossils.”

By Kristy Christiansen

14. A Tale of Two Spirits

Recalling the bootlegging days of Prairie Ronde, and the ghosts that were left behind

A pastoral tableau etched into the northwestern corner of St. Landry Parish, Prairie Ronde appears quiet and sublime. Yet beneath the surface is a history that belies today’s quaint, still veneer. This hamlet, whose French name means “Round Prairie,” was well known as a hub of some of the most significant moonshine operations during the Prohibition years of the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was a time when the hush of night was broken by the clandestine bubbling of stills, the sweet scent of corn mash soaked into the air. 

By Boisy Pitre

13. The World of Louisiana Zydeco

From Amédé and the Carriere Brothers, to Clifton and "Buckwheat", and on to the Grammy nominated zydeco stars of today

The term “zydeco” has been associated with Black Creole music, and how it evolved, at least since the early twentieth century, though originally by way of the Louisiana French word for snap beans, “les haricots”—usually used in the context of the phrase “les haricots sont pas sale,” or “the snap beans aren’t salted,” an idiom for “the times are hard”. The phrase was a common responsive greeting within Black Creole communities, as well as a frequently-used lyric within the musical repertoire—even appearing on several of Lomax’s recordings of Creole French singers from 1934.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

12. To France with Jane

In Lafayette, Chef Will Baxter Cultivates a Little Corner of Paris

Upon walking into Jane’s, my husband Julien and I were greeted by the glowering visage of Vincent Van Gogh. The recreation of of “Self Portrait with a Straw Hat” sets the European tone of Chef Will Baxter’s restaurant, a space suffused with the French eclectic style of his late grandmother, the antiquarian Jane Fleniken. The décor is all hers, remnants of her legendary assemblage of fine French furnishings: gold-framed Marie Therese de Jaham paintings of dogs and ducks, a glittering chandelier with two glass roses extending outwards. A massive armoire filled with crystal occupies an entire wall. Some of the lanterns hanging in the courtyard still have price tags on them, in Fleniken’s  handwriting. 

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

11. From Pine to Palm

One of America's oldest, greatest roadtrips, revived

Long before Route 66 and the interstate highway system, before most roads were even drivable by car, the Jefferson Highway—named for the president who doubled the country’s size in 1803—gave farmers and tourists a route from Winnipeg, Canada, all the way through the heart of the Louisiana Purchase to New Orleans.

By Cheré Coen

10. All Aboard

A new, brilliantly eccentric ode to historic hospitality opens its doors in Grand Coteau

After taking the exit 11 off LA-93, the modern world gives way to timeless beauty and tranquil rejuvenation. Once called the holiest place in Louisiana, Grand Coteau can save your soul if you let it. The historic town is renowned as a haven for spiritual rejuvenation and creativity, and its newest lodging, The Trainwreck Inn, serves as a vintage-inspired retreat that references the area’s history and contributes to its creative spirit.

 Like most good things, The Trainwreck Inn is a labor of love. Co-owner Ben Trant, a Renaissance man if there ever was one, has the calluses on his hands to prove it.

By Ashley Hinson

9. Un 'Tite Affaire

Chef Roy Guilbeau's journey from HOTS Nightclub in Larose to a French Bakery in Marksville

Growing up in Golden Meadow in the southern part of Lafourche Parish, Roy Guilbeau’s passion for the culinary arts was piqued at an early age. “My mom, God rest her soul, could not and did not cook,” he laughed. Taking advantage of the abundant access to the Gulf and Bayou Lafourche’s fresh seafood, he quickly became the household cook, and so began a lifelong passion for Louisiana’s homegrown culinary culture. 

By Natalie Roblin

8. How New Orleans Became the Cradle

From its origins in Congo Square, jazz carries forth as the spirit of the Crescent City

When it comes to the origins of jazz, today often called BAM (Black American Music), there is one point that historians and scholars across the spectrum generally agree on: jazz would not exist were it not for Congo Square.

By Alexandra Kennon

7. 5 Acadiana Artists You Should Know 

From Acadiana's eclectic creative scene arise a wealth of interesting, dynamic artists from a range of mediums. We recommend starting with these.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

6. Making the PawPaw Cool Again

North America's largest native fruit is having a renaissance in Louisiana

The pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is the only tropical fruit native to the continental United States and the largest fruit native to North America. Its fruit has the outside appearance of an oblong, green potato—the skin and large black seeds are inedible and even mildly toxic. The reward is found in its soft, pale-yellow flesh, which tastes somewhat like a banana and mango pudding. Foodies recommend squeezing the ripe fruit straight from the peel into your mouth, chilling and eating it like a custard, or pureeing to add into smoothies, ice cream, quick bread, or jam. 

By Kristy Christiansen

5. 5 New Orleans Artists You Should Know

Artists across mediums and backgrounds draw inspiration from New Orleans's landscape and culture—here are five of many worth following.

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

4. History of Cajun Music, 1930s to Today 

Tracing the evolutions of Cajun Music throughout the twentieth century

By the 1930s, when the Lomaxes were collecting their field recordings, the French communities of Southwest Louisiana were undergoing an era of extraordinary social change. Education was being mandated for the first time within these rural communities, and the state was actively forbidding students from speaking the French of their ancestors. This coincided with the oil boom in Louisiana and Texas, which attracted outside workers to the region while simultaneously drawing Southwest Louisianans to Texas to pursue the economic opportunity there—exposing the formerly isolated communities to the larger American, Anglophone world. The World Wars exacerbated this effect while also establishing a sense of American nationalism within the French speaking communities. At the same time, advances in technology such as the introduction of the radio and improvements in transportation opened new doors from which to access the increasingly urban, Americanized cultures around the Acadiana region. 

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

3. Maison Freetown 

Where the stories of Lafayette's African American community will be preserved for generations to come

The property on which La Maison Creole de Freetown museum sits is shared by an oak tree that wears the magnificence of centuries. The canopy extends over the block of Lafayette’s historic Freetown neighborhood, situated on property that was once part of Louisiana Governor Alexandre Mouton’s Ile Copal sugar plantation, and just around the corner from Good Hope Hall—a Black-only gathering place and venue during the Jim Crow era, where Louis Armstrong performed dozens of times, while white audiences listened outside. 

“A lot of times when I’m on the property, I think of the many lives [the tree has] seen,” said Maison Freetown Founder and Executive Director Erica Melancon Fox in a December 2023 interview with Sara Barkouli at StoryCorps. “I just wonder about all the stories it has seen and experienced and knows, and the secrets it holds.” 

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

2. Why You Shouldn't Kill Wasps

These flying insects with bad reputations are a vital piece of our ecosystem

Spring is here; everything is alive. The garden is dynamic, animated by characters toiling in the soil and flying through the air. Many of these characters (insects, birds, and more) are executing, naturally and often accidentally, their important role of pollination.

There is one character in particular who suffers from a poor reputation, but whose work is vital to the success of the garden. I have been waiting a decade for this precious opportunity to advocate for this hard-pressed pollinator staple: the wasp.

By Jess Cole

1. To Grieve My Brother . . .

Elise Riley remembers her brother Chris Stafford, Acadiana’s music man, who was so much more than his music

On May 2, one of the most important musicians of Acadiana’s contemporary music scene was killed in a car accident at the age of thirty-six. Chris Stafford was a multi-instrumentalist and producer whose talent has been widely recognized since he was eleven years old. He is best known for his role as a founding member of the Grammy-nominated band Feufollet, but has contributed as fiddler, accordionist, vocalist, guiatrist, and holding various other instruments in performances with dozens of the region’s other major roots bands. His vital contributions to Louisiana’s musical landscape have been well-documented and honored these past few weeks, but in this issue, we asked Chris’s sister Elise Riley to offer a tribute in her own words to who Chris was even beyond the music.