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Armond “Nutey” Kirt, 66, a native and resident of Verdunville, died Saturday at 12:05 p.m. at Franklin Foundation Hospital.
Visitation will be Saturday from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at St. Jules Catholic Church in Franklin.
Funeral services will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at the church. interment will follow in the St. Jules Cemetery.
He is survived by his mother, Ruby C. Kirt of Verdunville; four sons, Sean Kirt of Jeanerette, Troy Kirt of Verdunville, Kim Kirt of Patterson and Casey Kirt of Pax River, Md.; one daughter, Mrs. Anthony (Kelly) Lightfoot of Verdunville; two brothers, Kenneth Kirt and Rudy Kirt, both of Franklin; seven sisters, Patricia K. Foster, Janet K. Owens and Elaine Lewis, all of Verdunville, Lois K. Pellerin of Dallas, and Iris Butler, Hildred Gunner and Claire K. Coleman, all of Ohio; 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Jones Funeral Home in Franklin is in charge of arrangements.
Joseph “Peter Wee” Williams Sr., 82, a native of Kilgore and resident of Glencoe, died Sunday at 12:05 p.m. at his residence.
Visitation will be Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Macedonia Baptist Church in Ashton.
Funeral services will begin at 1 p.m. at the church. interment will be in the Beau Pre Cemetery
in Jeanerette.
He is survived by his wife, Louise C. Williams of Franklin; six sons, Donald Williams, Charles Williams and Carl Williams, all of Houston, Joseph Williams Jr. of Glencoe, Jonas Mitchell of Baldwin, and Vince Mitchell of Tallahassee, Fla.; two stepsons, Craig Colbert and Troy Colbert, both of Four Corners; two daughters, Mrs. Carl (Sarah) Joseph of Four Corners and Mrs. Robert (Shezsay) Lanceslin of San Diego, Calif.; one sister, Beulah Moore of Jeanerette; 19 grandchildren, two great-grandchildren; and a host of nieces, nephews, relatives and friends.
He was preceded in death by his parents, four brothers and five sisters.
Jones Funeral Home in Franklin is in charge of arrangements.
Gertrude Mason, 89, a resident of Morgan City, born to the late Ellis and Pearl Price on Nov. 22, 1914, in Houma, Passed away Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2004, in Patterson.
Visitation will be Friday, Aug. 13, 2004, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Hargrave Funeral Home in Morgan City.
Services will be conducted at 2 p.m. at the funeral home, officiated by Monsignor Richard Greene. interment will follow in the Morgan City Cemetery.
She is survived by her son, Huey Mason, and his wife, Wanda, of Waco, Texas ; her daughter, Marles Boyd of Houma; and her daughter, Dian Viviano and her husband, Robert; her sisters, Rona Rodrigue and Miriam Brossett, both of New Orleans, and Rayea Voisin of Grand Caillou; and her brothers, Felton Picou of Washington and Ray Picou of Houma.
She also is survived by four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
She will be deeply missed by all of her family, friends and loved ones.
Hargrave Funeral Home in Morgan City has been entrusted with the arrangements.
Lou Ana James, 68, a native of Palmetto and resident of Charenton, died Tuesday at 2:20 a.m. at Iberia General Medical Center in New Iberia.
Visitation will be Friday from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Macedonia Baptist Church in Baldwin.
Funeral services will begin at 1:30 p.m. Friday at the church. Burial will be Saturday in the Macedonia Baptist Church Cemetery
in Baldwin.
She is survived by two adopted sons, Sam James of Lafayette and John James of Centerville; six brothers, Joseph Landry of Lafayette, Vincent Landry of Palmetto, Louis Landry of Mexico, Patrick Landry of Morgan City, Harvey Landry of Many, and Calvin Landry of Jeanerette; and 12 sisters, Mary Bell of Palmetto, Rose Colbert of Ashton, Geraldine Robertson of Lafayette, Jane Lacour and Sarah Soloman of Dallas, Gloria King of Houston, Betty Jolivette of Four Corners, Patricia Wilson, Amy Randle, Alice Randle and Doris Hatcherson, all of Baldwin, and Lillian Harmon of Jeanerette.
She was preceded in death by two sisters and three brothers.
Jones Funeral Home in Franklin is in charge of arrangements.
James J. Smith, 78, of Berwick died Tuesday at 1:45 p.m. at Teche Regional Medical Center.
Funeral arrangements, which were incomplete this morning, are being handled by Jones Funeral Home in Morgan City.
Carl Joseph Verrett Sr., 64, a native of Oakdale and a resident of Morgan City, died Monday at 9 p.m. at Teche Regional Medical Center in Morgan City.
Visitation will be held today from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. at Rush Funeral Home in Pine Prairie. Visitation will resume Wednesday at 8 a.m. at the funeral home.
Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the funeral home in Pine Prairie. Burial will be in Beaver Creek Cemetery
in Pine Prairie.
He is survived by two sons, Carl J. Verrett Jr. of Pine Prairie and Willie A. Verrett of Glenmora; one daughter, Sharon A. Ardoin of Pine Prairie; one sister, Ms. Gregory of Patterson; nine grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his wife, parents, one son, two brothers and one sister.
Rush Funeral Home in Pine Prairie is in charge of arrangements.
Paul N. “Red” Adair, who earned the nickname “Hellfighter” for having never met an oil well fire he couldn’t cap and whose story inspired John Wayne to portray his life on screen, has died.
Adair, 89, died Saturday of natural causes at a Houston hospital, his daughter, Robyn Adair, told The Associated Press early Sunday.
The news saddened Patterson’s Frank Smoorenburg, who worked at what was then known as Cameron Iron Works in Patterson.
“Many times Red Adair came to the plant to give the orders for what he needed for a blowout,” he said. “We made many blowout stacks for Red.”
Smoorenburg remembers one job specifically.
“It was a sour gas, high-pressure stack for a job in Calgary, Canada,” he said. “We tested the stack for 20,000 (pounds per square inch) pressure. As soon as everything was ready, Cameron Iron Works shipped it to Canada.
“We heard nothing more about the stack until I went to an oil show in Lafayette and met a Cameron Iron salesman who worked in Canada.
“I asked him how that stacked worked and he said, ‘Oh, Red Adair put it on and had it under control quickly,’” Smoorenburg said.
It made the Patterson resident angry.
“I told the salesman that he (Adair) took the credit while 14 men did all the work (to build the stack). So I went to the office of Red Adair and asked him to give these 14 men a Red Adair belt buckle.
“I gave each of these 14 men a buckle,” Smoorenburg said.
He said Cameron made many blowout stacks for Adair, one of them for a job used on a well across Bayou Teche in Patterson when the Cameron plant manager was the mayor of the city.
Adair is credited with battling more than 2,000 land and offshore oil well fires. His death-defying feats included battling the July 1988 explosion of the Piper Alpha platform that killed 167 men in the stormy North Sea, 120 miles off the coast of Scotland.
Former President George H.W. Bush called Adair a true hero.
“So many times he went into harm’s way to save others,” he said. “I particularly remember his service to mankind in Kuwait when the oil fields, set ablaze, first devastated the Persian Gulf. Red Adair was a friend, a wonderful human being and a patriot. He will be sorely missed.”
Adair’s teams were among the first of 27 teams from 16 countries that spent eight months capping 732 Kuwaiti wells after the Persian Gulf War in 1991. His expertise helped greatly shorten an operation that had been expected to last three to five years, saving millions of barrels of oil and stopping an intercontinental air pollution disaster.
“He knew his talents for putting out oil-well fires was a God-given gift and he was thankful for that,” Robyn Adair said in Sunday’s edition of the Houston Chronicle. “He was very energetic and quick on his feet.”
Adair revolutionized the science of snuffing and controlling wells spewing high-pressure jets of oil and gas, using explosives, water cannons, bulldozers, drilling mud and concrete. He was the first to cap an underwater well and the first to cap a floating vessel. He led the industry in developing modern equipment and firefighting techniques, including the semi-submersible firefighting vessel.
“It scares you: all the noise, the rattling, the shaking,” Adair once said, describing a blowout. “But the look on everybody’s face when you’re finished and packing, it’s the best smile in the world; and there’s nobody hurt, and the well’s under control.”
Adair’s prowess inspired the title of the 1968 John Wayne movie based on his life, “The Hellfighters.”
“That’s one of the best honors in the world: To have The Duke play you in a movie,” Adair said.
Adair’s career began in 1938 at an Oklahoma oil field where he was working as a roughneck for 30 cents an hour.
He recalled that a valve might have blown. “Everybody else run but me, and I stayed up there and put the valve back on and almost got fired,” he recalled in his Texas drawl.
Instead, he attracted the attention of Myron Kinley, then the dean of oil well firefighting. When Kinley retired in 1959, Adair started the Red Adair Co. Inc.
Three years later, Adair capped one of the most spectacular oil well fires in history: the “Devil’s Cigarette Lighter” in the Sahara desert in 1962. The blowout shot flames so high that former astronaut John Glenn noted that he was able to see the blaze from his space capsule.
Adair proudly spent his 76th birthday in Kuwait clad in his trademark red overalls, swinging valves into place atop out-of-control wells.
“Retire? I don’t know what that word means,” he told reporters at the time. “As long as a man is able to work and he’s productive out there and he feels good — keep at it. I’ve got too many of my friends that retired and went home and got on a rocking chair, and about a year and a half later, I’m always going to the cemetery.”
Adair finally retired in 1994.
Adair, who never showed fear in life, joked in 1991 that the hereafter would be no different.
“I’ve done made a deal with the devil,” Adair said. “He said he’s going to give me an air-conditioned place when I go down there, if I go there, so I won’t put all the fires out.”
Joseph Suire, 83, a native and resident of Erath, died Thursday at 11:02 p.m. at Morris Lahasky Nursing Home in Erath.
Visitation will be Saturday from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. at Ibert’s Mortuary in Patterson.
Funeral services will be held Saturday at 3 p.m. at Ibert’s Mortuary. interment will follow in Ibert’s Memorial Park Cemetery
in Patterson.
He is survived by his sons, Leroy J. Suire Sr. of Erath; Roy J. Suire Jr. of Patterson; 13 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his parents; his sister, Louella Suire Vinning; and two brothers, Freddie and Joe Suire.
Ibert’s Mortuary is in charge of local arrangements.
Alberta B. Johnson , 88, a native of Patterson and resident of Morgan City, died Wednesday at 8:25 p.m. at Patterson Health Care Center after a lengthy illness.
She is survived by a host of relatives.
Visitation will be Monday at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Morgan City from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Services Monday will be at 1 p.m. at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Morgan City. Burial will be at Shield Cemetery
in Patterson.
Jones Funeral Home in Morgan City will be in charge of arrangements.
