Opelousas Museum and Interpretive Center

06/16/2026

You may have met Andrea Richard who works at the museum part time. Among her many skills, she’s great with tech. She was a great help, serving as the go to for presentations at the museum with Gathering of Descendants. Thanks Andrea!

06/16/2026

06/12/2026

The Gathering of Descendants begins soon—so exciting.

06/12/2026

We had a wonderful day, on Wednesday, touring the Center for Louisiana Studies archives(CLS) with Patrice, Samantha, Ms Lena and Pudd.

Thanks to John Sharp of CLS for showing us around. We are developing a partnership between the Opelousas Museum, SW LA Zydeco Festival and Center for Louisiana Studies in order to digitize and preserve the artifacts and media that belongs to the SWLA Zydeco Music Festival.

06/11/2026

The loss of Ruth Foote leaves a hole and an ache in the community. RIP.

We lost Ruth Anita Foote.
We're still trying to make those words feel real.

Ruth was a journalist and a historian — one of the best this place ever produced, and most people never knew the half of it. She co-founded Creole Magazine. She wrote about us when nobody else would. When Clifton Chenier passed, his family asked Ruth to write the King of Zydeco's obituary. That's who she was. When it mattered, you called Ruth.

She spent her life making sure our people made it into the record. She wrote the ending of our Hands of Heritage book. She was a champion for this culture long before it was in style, and she never needed the credit for it.

She was an honoree in our very first book — same book as Bryant Benoit, same book as Lee Allen. All three of them gone now, in one year. This is a major loss. Not for any one of us — for Creole culture, for Acadiana, for everybody coming after who will never get to sit in a room with her. The people who carry this culture are leaving faster than anyone is documenting them. Ruth understood that better than anybody. She spent her whole life fighting it.

We're just glad we didn't wait. She got to hold her flowers. She got to see her name in the book — the same book in Lafayette's time capsule, to be opened in 50 years, then again in 100. Somebody not even born yet will read her name and know she was here. That's all any of this was ever for.

From me, Milton: Ruth was my friend, my hero and my champion before I'd earned one. I'm heartbroken. I lost her, and the culture lost one of its best.

Ruth, thank you. For the words. For the truth (boi did it hurt sometimes). For all of it.

— Milton Arceneaux & [Co-Founder], Creole Culture

This is one from Ruth's book session that we never published. 📸 by Milton Arceneaux

06/10/2026

Here is a short video about a photo by Florence Freeman, and about Joe Freeman and Joe Freeman's Beauty & Barber Salon. The video was created by Elliot Wade and sponsored by the Louisiana Division for the Arts and St. Landry Parish Tourism.

06/10/2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyO8RIUg8gs
Through the project, Thinking Big, there is a billboard on I-49 that showcases a photograph by Florence Freeman: It is an invitation to visit Opelousas. The video was created by the talented Elliot Wade.

06/09/2026

Opelousas, LA June 9, 2026-- We’re excited to announce that the Opelousas Museum is part of the new Fieldwork Fellowship! Fieldwork is a new national program for rural and Tribal communities that provides customized design, planning, and project development support. For the museum, this is an opportunity to broaden the scope of the Civil War room to include more narratives and reveal a culturally diverse and complex history. Project team members include Patrice Melnick, Samantha Schexnayder, Jennifer Thomas and Jerome Ford.

“The Fieldwork Fellowship’s inaugural cohort come from rural and Tribal communities across the country, working on some of the most inspiring and challenging arts, cultural, and humanities issues today,” said Maria Sykes, Fieldwork’s co-director and Executive Director of Epicenter in Green River, Utah. “We are thrilled to be working alongside To Be Done Studio in the coming year to help rural communities throughout the states shape their futures.”

Upcoming, we will provide a schedule community conversations about the project; we will also invite area residents to participate in the Community Advisory Committee. Look for more information at opelousasmuseum.org. Community engagement is crucial to illuminate formerly untold stories, and to invite a range of perspectives.