West End gets ‘blast’ at park

Children were bouncing on the Fun Jump, tossing a football and whirling on the merry-go-round Saturday afternoon at the Spring Blast in West End Park. Smiles were everywhere on the sunny day that felt almost like summer, not spring.

But the happiest kid of all could have been 12-year-old Jaquil Prevost of Hopkins Elementary.

“I met a nice girl today,” the fifth-grader said with a really big grin.

He said he didn’t know if they would be boyfriend and girlfriend after the day ended, but nodded a “yes” when asked if he’d like that. Then he grinned again and ran off, presumably in search of that “nice girl” he just met.

Nearby, 15-year-old Yiesha, who shook her head “no” when asked for her last name, was talking with a friend about Westgate, their school that just won the state 5A basketball championship. The sophomore said she was having fun on this hot Saturday afternoon, but her time was really dedicated to being a chaperone for her little sisters Andrewnette and Aunjane, who were within eyesight of their big sister at the play slide.

At the merry-go-round, Evandrick Abraham, an 8-year-old second-grader at Pesson Elementary, said he liked hanging on the monkey bars and playing football with his friends.

“Yes,” he said, when asked if had the free hot dog and cola handed out just a few minutes earlier. His mom, Toshika Sigure, just smiled at her son’s limited answer, but also said they had just found out about the event and wished they’d been there sooner.

The Junior Auxiliary of Iberia Parish sponsored the event, which was held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday and was available for free to all Iberia Parish elementary school students.

The sheriff was on site with his command mobile unit and the Louisiana Kids were doing their part with live singing, prompting a jiggle or two of the hips from both kids and moms.

Then there was Joseph Duplantis, who took a practical view of the proceedings as he tossed pebbles into a bag at the swing set.

“Well, I played on the Fun Jump, I played on the slide here and I played on the monkey bars,” Duplantis, 8, a second-grader at Delcambre Elementary, said with a wrinkled face as he squinted up at the reporter towering above him.

His favorite part of the day? The Fun Jump.

“Because it’s fun, you jump and it’s like exercise,” he said.