Bull Riding at the LSU Student Rodeo

Jamie Rowe’s body flew toward the ground and landed with a loud thud. The crowd gasped as he struggled toward the gate and out of harm’s way, the gigantic animal still thrashing just a few yards away. It was the first time Rowe had ever ridden a bull.

A student saddles up a bull before the bull-riding event.

Bull riding is the most popular and most dangerous event of the annual LSU student rodeo. Any student may participate, but they must sign a liability waiver.

“The paper I had to sign was something saying I wouldn’t sue if I died or anything. There was a notary there who had to sign it and two witnesses also,” said Rowe, LSU civil engineering senior.

After his rough landing, a student carried Rowe into the stands where two paramedics checked him for injuries. Rowe only suffered minor injuries: a bruised shoulder bone and a strained back. Several weeks after the rodeo, Rowe said he was still sore.

Paramedic Timothy Eschete has been covering the student rodeo for the past five years. He said the most serious injury he has ever seen occurred during a bull-riding event two years ago.  

“We had a young man who had what’s called a retroperitoneal tear. He was bleeding into the back, in and around his kidneys,” Eschete said. “He got stomped on and went into the stands and passed out.”

Eschete said injuries are common because most students who participate have little or no rodeo experience. Bull riding is dangerous for even the most seasoned riders, he said.

“A pro cowboy grew up doing this,” he said. “You take kids from the city and bring them out here and stick them on something that by nature doesn’t want them there. It’s just an added risk versus what a normal cowboy would face.”

LSU environmental engineering senior Grant Gutierrez rode a bull for the first time last year. The writhing bull stepped on him and gored him in the back. The ride was thrilling, but the landing was painful, Gutierrez said. Despite his “bad landing,” he said he was not hesitant to ride again this year.

 “I didn’t think it could get worse than last year,” he said. “I didn’t get too bloody this year, so I’m happy.”

Similarly, Rowe said he would do it all over again, despite his minor injuries.

“I would definitely ride again to make my glory last longer than 1.3 seconds,” Rowe said with a laugh. “It was a great experience. Who else can say they have ridden a bull?”

Haunted French Quarter: The Napoleon House

The New Orleans French Quarter is home to dozens of haunted historical hot spots.  Many of the city’s ghost tour companies boast, “New Orleans, the most haunted city in America.” But tour companies may have missed a haunt in one of the French Quarter’s most famous historical sites, Napoleon House.

A painting of Napoleon sits near the entrance to Napoleon House's third-floor apartments.

Built by Nicholas Girod, mayor of New Orleans from 1812 to 1815, Napoleon House was originally intended to be a residence for Napoleon Bonaparte. Although Napoleon House is rich with history, Napoleon himself was never actually a part of it, said Maria Impastato, one of the building’s owners.

Today, the three-story building functions as a restaurant, bar and reception hall. The Impastato family has owned Napoleon House since the early 1900s. Impastato said her grandparents used to live on the second floor, which is now the reception hall. The third floor consists of three separate apartments, which the family always rented out, Impastato said.

Covington residents Chastian and Liz Taurman have been renting one of the apartments for the past year. They and their five grown children use the apartment when they stay in the city.

Catherine Taurman, the youngest of the Taurman siblings, is a student at Tulane University and occasionally uses the apartment for school. She said she thought the apartment was haunted the first time she walked into it.

“You get a creepy vibe from it,” Catherine said. “When you’re there by yourself, you feel like someone else is with you, but no one is with you.”

Catherine said she had an “eerie experience” when she and several friends stayed in the apartment during Mardi Gras. When one of Catherine’s friends mentioned that she thought the place was haunted by a ghost, Catherine said the lights in the kitchen started blinking wildly. Astonished, they decided to ask the spirit questions.

“We asked if there was a presence here to blink the light three times,” Catherine said. “It blinked. One. Two. Three.”

After asking several more questions and watching the kitchen light flicker correspondingly, Catherine said she and her friends were convinced the flickering was no coincidence due to faulty wiring.

Despite the unsettling incident, Catherine said she is not afraid to stay in the apartment.

“I don’t think it’s there to hurt me or scare me away,” she said. “It’s a very old house. There’s probably going to be spirits there. That’s just new Orleans.”

Catherine’s sister, Mary Taurman, had a similar experience when she and a friend visited the apartment after a wedding.

When Mary mentioned the strange experience her sister had, her friend declared that she did not believe in ghosts. Suddenly, the kitchen light flickered.  

Mary said she asked the ghost to make the light blink again, and it did. It was very deliberate, and it did not flicker again after that, Mary said.  

Liz Taurman, the girls’ mother, said she is “not as big on hauntings” as her daughters are. Despite her skepticism about ghosts, she said she cannot deny strange things have happened in the apartment.

The first time Liz slept there alone, she experienced a rude awakening.

“I was just going to sleep, and something hit me in the back. It was like a shove,” she said.

She said the push was strong enough to make her question whether there was someone else in the room. But she was alone.

Maria Impastato has spent her life around Napoleon House and said that she has never had a supernatural experience there. However, she admits there is a “ton of history” in the more than 200-year-old building.

The third-floor apartments were historically rented out to short-term visitors, not families, Impastato said. Most of the people that lived up there were seamen, she said.

“Who knows? Maybe there is a spirit going around,” she said with a laugh.

The Pit Bull Myth

Adoptions manager Jessica Harris lovingly pets Champ, a pit bull up for adoption at the St. Tammany Humane Society.

Vicious beast or lovable family pet?

There are many misconceptions about pit bull terriers, said Dr. Alissa Whitney, a graduate of the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. Assumptions that the breed is inherently aggressive and dangerous are, for the most part, unfounded, Whitney said. Although the breed is very powerful, pit bulls are no more inherently aggressive than poodles or Chihuahuas, she said. Pit bull aggression is just more publicized.

 “Most of what we know about dog attacks comes from what is presented in the media,” Whitney said. “An aggressive attack by a pit bull or by a large dog is going to get a lot more attention than an attack by a small dog.”

Aggressive dogs are almost always a reflection of the way they were raised, Whitney said. Although pit bulls are not inherently dangerous, they can be selectively bred for certain behavior traits.

“If you had somebody who was breeding aggressive dogs generation after generation, you may well end up with a puppy that is more prone to being aggressive,” Whitney said. “But there is no way to eyeball those dogs and tell that.”

Whitney currently practices veterinary medicine at the Animal Medical Center in Covington. She said pit bulls are some of her favorite patients.

“They have high pain thresholds. You can pull blood on them and examine them, and they’re less likely to go off than some other dogs,” she said.

St. Tammany Humane Society adoptions manager Jessica Harris said pit bulls are misunderstood, and people are wary of adopting them. Most dogs at the shelter are adopted within three to four months. However, pit bulls often stay eight months to a year before being adopted, Harris said.

This is why Tammy Davis, the founder of American Pit Bull Terrier Rescue, Inc., has devoted her life to finding homes for these dogs who have “stolen her heart.” Davis’s Baton Rouge-based rescue organization takes pit bulls out of shelters and off the streets and finds loving homes for them. The organization has rescued hundreds of pit bulls since its inception in 2002.

Davis said she does not take dogs who are “people aggressive,” but she does rehabilitate former fighting dogs and dogs that have animal aggression.

Davis said the reason why pit bulls are often used as fighting dogs is because they live to please their owners. If the owner praises the dog for its aggression, it will be quick to adopt that behavior. However, most pit bulls love people and are great with other animals if they are properly socialized, Davis said.

Anybody that has been exposed to a pit bull that has been treated properly will fall in love with the breed, Davis said. They are goofy, funny dogs, but they are also faithful protectors, she said.

This is why former BRCC student Marissa Mortillaro adopted her pit bull, Beau, about two years ago. Mortillaro adopted Beau before she went to college because she was living alone and wanted a large dog for protection.

Mortillaro said Beau has never attacked or even snapped at anyone, but he has been a very loyal protector. When she was living in Baton Rouge, someone tried to break into her apartment in the middle of the night. Mortillaro said Beau woke her up because he knew something was wrong. As she and Beau walked downstairs to see what the problem was, Beau would not let her walk ahead of him.

“I was trying to get in front of him to look through the peep hole on the front door, and this little 6-month-old puppy was so strong, I could not even get past him,” Mortillaro said. “He wanted to get to it first.”

Mortillaro said she found the screen on her downstairs window sliced off, and her front door knob was hanging by a screw.  She believes Beau’s growls scared the intruder away.  

Despite Beau’s power and size, Mortillaro said he is as gentle as a kitten. In fact, when Mortillaro adopted a kitten she found in her yard, Beau took the kitten in as his own.  

“Beau would pick the kitten up by his mouth and walk around the house with it,” Mortillaro said with a laugh. “He would go to his food bowl, get food and keep it in his mouth to get it really soggy and moist. Then he would actually drop it in the kitten’s mouth and feed it.”

Despite her own pit bull’s gentle disposition, Mortillaro said she does not think the breed is for everyone.

“They are extremely hard-headed animals, and they like to see what they can get away with,” she said.  “I think that if you have someone who is not going to stay on top of the training, because they are so strong and powerful, you may get a bad animal.”

Whitney agrees with Mortillaro’s assertion, and said that the breed is not good for inexperienced owners.  Prospective owners should do their homework and know that pit bulls, like any powerful breed, require a firm hand, Whitney said.

“No one should just randomly get a dog because they like the way it looks or because they like the status symbol that is reflects,” she said.

Hill Farm Community Garden

Nestled between University Recreation and the Lod Cook Hotel is a dwindling historical treasure. 

Hill Farm Community Garden faculty adviser Carl Motsenbocker helps new gardeners divide up their plots during the first meeting of the fall semester.

The Hill Farm Community Garden is part of the Hill Farm Teaching Facility at LSU. Its mission is to provide students with the access, resources and education necessary to grow food.

Since its inception in 1927, Hill Farm’s original 40-acre area has repeatedly downsized to make room for developments like UREC, the Lod Cook Hotel and sorority row. Today, the garden is about 5 acres, with about one-third of an acre devoted to field production of vegetables.

Hill Farm will soon face yet another disruption. The University has been working on development plans for Hill Farm and its adjacent properties, said the community garden’s faculty adviser Carl Motsenbocker.

Because the Hill Farm land is historical, the facility will remain in the same area on campus. However, Motsenbocker said he may have to reconfigure the areas and activities within the site.

“The current gardens will exist in the future in the same size, but they will probably be moved as we move forward,” Motsenbocker said.

Motsenbocker said things have changed a lot since he conducted research at Hill Farm during his academic career at the University.

“I used to use field space and grow melons for research where the Lod Cook Hotel and pool now stand,” Motsenbocker said. “I also conducted vegetable crops variety trials where the baseball fields and tennis courts now stand.”

Although Hill Farm’s area has decreased substantially over the years, Motsenbocker said there is still a strong teaching component at Hill Farm. Students and faculty use the facility’s lecture rooms, greenhouses, can yard, shade area and field space.

Motsenbocker started the Hill Farm Community Garden in 2000 after many of the students in his organic gardening class voiced a desire to continue gardening the following spring. Others in the LSU community were quick to follow suit.

The community garden now attracts 20 to 40 members per semester, said Hill Farm Community Garden president Jennifer Hay. The group has had success recruiting students from various curriculums outside of agriculture.

Accounting junior Katherine Johnson is one of the community garden’s new members. Johnson said she saw fliers for Hill Farm in Patrick Taylor Hall over the summer and was immediately interested in signing up. She said she used to grow pumpkins at her home in Lake Charles, and she is happy to be able to continue gardening at LSU.

“I really want to be able to make my own salsa,” Johnson said with a smile. “That’s the goal of my plot.”

The community garden is not limited to university students. Anyone can buy a plot for $10 per semester. The money goes toward supplies and seeds. Each plot is roughly 45 square feet, and members can grow whatever they choose.

 “I think I’m going to try growing some squash and bush beans and turnips,” retired high school teacher Sheila Soniat said as she looked thoughtfully at her empty plot.

Members grow almost anything you can think of, and everything is grown organically, Hay said. Some of the crops that are grown communally are donated to community organizations like the Battered Women’s Shelter and the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Room.  Of course, members are allowed to keep the food they grow individually.

Ideally, students will learn basic gardening skills at Hill Farm and be able to reproduce their garden anywhere.

“It’s definitely about learning to be a little more sustainable,” Hay said.

Students Donate Plasma for Quick Cash

A local college student hooked up to a plasmapheresis machine.

I heard donating plasma can be a lucrative practice. Naturally, as a full-time college student struggling to pay the bills, I jumped at the chance to make some quick cash.

The donor screening process at Talecris Plasma Resources in Baton Rouge was very thorough. The process helps ensure that the donor is eligible and the plasma is clean and disease-free.

I presented my social security card and driver’s license, stepped on a scale, answered questions about my medical history and pricked my finger for a blood sample.  Then, I waited.

And I waited.

A nurse eventually led me through a bright room where about 10 people lay quietly with long crimson tubes protruding from their forearms into some high-tech machines.

I cringed. Needles always make me nervous.

The nurse then directed me into a private room. I could feel the screening process coming to a close, at last. Shortly after another round of questions about the medications I take, my visit came to a halt.

“You can’t donate because your asthma inhaler contains a steroid,” the nurse said.  “I’m sorry about that.”

I sighed, reflecting on the past two hours I spent in anxious anticipation.

“Oh well,” I said, secretly somewhat relieved. That needle was monstrous. “So much for 40 bucks.”

Despite the waste of time, it was comforting to know that they went to such great lengths to ensure safe, clean plasma donations. After all, people’s lives depend on it.

Plasma donation is popular among college students. Tim Smith, the center manager at Talecris Plasma Resources, said the company welcomes the business it gets from students. Talecris is even trying to draw in more student donors by putting ads in local college publications, Smith said.

“You guys are actually helping us make medicines to help people with life-threatening conditions, but it also puts a little extra money in your pockets,” he said.

Plasma is the liquid portion of blood that contains a protein essential for lifesaving therapies. Plasma is crucial to functions like infection control and contains antibodies that help the immune system fight disease.

“Plasma proteins make everything from medicines to help burn victims, immune-compromised victims, the hyper immune and things like that,” Smith said.

During the donation process, a nurse inserts a 17-gage needle into the patient’s arm. An automated plasmapheresis machine removes the whole blood and separates the plasma from the cellular portion. Then, the machine re-infuses the blood cells back into the body.

The process takes about one hour, but it can vary from person to person depending on weight and other criteria. Being well-hydrated helps to speed up the process.

It is important to eat a regular meal and drink plenty of water before going to donate. This will minimize the possibility of nausea, dizziness and fainting during the process.

The heavier a person is, the more plasma that can be taken out of their system without harming them, Smith said. Conversely, people who weigh less than 110 pounds are not eligible to donate because their blood pressure may plummet.

Alex Shows, a political science and business administration senior at Millsaps College, encountered such a problem when he donated at a plasma center in Jackson, Miss.

“I was about 40 minutes through it. They had just taken out about a pint and were starting to put it back in when all of the sudden, I just started blacking out,” he said. “I got really cold, and my blood pressure dropped really low.”

Although Shows met the weight criteria for donors, his body still faltered.

“The nurses at the place said it happens every now and then,” Shows said. “I’m not sure why it happened to me.”

Although Shows said his experience was enough to discourage him from donating again, most people have little or no difficulty.

Evan Bartholomew, an education junior at ULL, said he donates plasma often at a center in Lafayette and has never had any problems.

“The first time I did it, it took forever because I was dehydrated,” Bartholomew said. “After that, I started drinking more water, and it usually took about 30 to 45 minutes.” Bartholomew said the needle did not bother him, either.

“I give blood, so I didn’t think it was too bad,” he said.

Bartholomew has earned hundreds of dollars donating plasma. He said he would definitely recommend it to other students.

“It’s a quick way to make some money, and you’re doing some good as well,” Bartholomew said.

Parker Featherston, a communication studies senior at LSU, agrees with Bartholomew’s assertion.  Featherston used to donate plasma at ZLB Plasma Services in Baton Rouge. He said he was unemployed at the time and needed some easy money.

“I watched ‘The Dark Knight’ the first time I gave, which was cool,” he said with a chuckle. “When I was done, I got a little piece of paper with a code on it, walked to the ATM, entered the code and immediately got my cash.”

Smith said students are usually repeat donors. They are allowed to donate twice in a seven-day period. Talecris offers cash incentives to get donors back in the door.

“New donors that come in get $40 the first time and $60 the second time,” Smith said. After that, they become regular donors. The company also has a “buddy bonus” program that pays extra to donors who refer their friends.

“We try to help the donors out,” Smith said.

However, there is a misconception that the company pays people for their plasma. Smith said it actually pays donors for their time.

“Your time is valuable,” he said. “Nobody likes to wait.”