Kids’ Orchestra of Baton Rouge recently announced the appointments of LSU School of Music doctoral student Raul Gomez as artistic director  and Eliza Eaton as project director.

A native of Costa Rica, Gomez is a conductor, violinist, composer and teacher working to complete his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting at LSU. He is a Sidney M. Blitzer violinist and a Huel D. Perkins Fellow in the university’s Doctor of Musical Arts program

As artistic director, Gomez said he is looking forward to working with the very talented team of Kids’ Orchestra teachers, student and their families to start a movement that will make a huge difference in the community.

“I am a strong believer in the power of the arts to help improve our society and culture and that’s what Kids’ Orchestra is all about,” Gomez said.

Attorney Gordon McKernan of the Mckernan Law Firm was interviewed recently for a feature in the USA Today.  The article was about his life as an attorney and taking a faith-based approach to building his law practice.  It published on May 25 and June 2.  Below is a snippet of the article:

 When Baton Rouge personal injury attorney Gordon McKernan uses the term “trial by fire,” he’s not just working a metaphor. Years before he earned his law degree from Loyola University in New Orleans in 1992, he found himself in the courtroom, personally defending a client he knew quite well - himself!Groomed for a legal career from an early age by his father Jerry McKernan - a veteran personal injury lawyer and onetime president of the Louisiana Association for Justice - Gordon was working for McKernan Law Firm during his high school years when he got a ticket for a hit and run incident involving a fire hydrant. The elder McKernan instructed Gordon to represent himself, which seemed like a scary proposition at first.

Advance Innovative Education (AIE), a statewide educational nonprofit, is holding a statewide panel discussion to promote the urgency of school turnaround in Louisiana. 

As a premier organization in educational leadership development, AIE presents this opportunity for honest conversation with experts involved in successful school turnaround.  All stakeholders of education are invited to learn about the turnaround mindset in Louisiana and what it means to align leadership for student success.

The featured panelist in this discussion is Dr. Tierney Temple Fairchild, co-author of The Turnaround Mindset: Aligning Leadership with Student Success.  Dr. Fairchild is the former executive director of the Darden/Curry Partnership for Leaders in Education at the University of Virginia and served as the lead consultant for EduLead, the developer of the blueprint for the Louisiana School Turnaround Specialist program, which began implementation in 2010.

In addition to Dr.