re: 1 dead and another injured at Bogalusa High School Basketball game

quote:

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Gaspasr1
Bogalusa used to be a great small town in the 60s -80s. Paper Mill has been the biggest employer and biggest curse to the city. When one company owns all the surrounding land they can control who comes in and who doesn’t. The only place to work there was the paper mill. The young people who could left went to college and never returned so all you have left is the ones who couldn’t leave and the ones working at the Mill. Sad

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I was born in Bogalusa in 1970. My mom's people are from just up the road (Varnado/Angie). Back then it was a decent town with no crime and just a bunch of country folks who wanted to live life and be left alone.

My dad worked at the bag/box plant until it closed circa 1975. That was the best thing that ever happened to us, as it turns out. He found work fairly quickly in BR and we moved there and never looked back.

So yes, that is 100% accurate about people leaving and staying gone.

My mom has a couple of relatives still alive over there and our family cemetery is just outside of town, so my mom and aunts go over there a couple times a year to visit. I went with them once a few years ago. It was the first time I had been in about 20 years. What I saw made me really sad. The educated folks left, the decent old people are all dead now, and what is left is akin to a third-world country.