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KIDsmART,
the local arts-in-education initiative aimed at enriching disadvantaged children, recently held its biggest ART JAM festival yet. The fifth annual event drew large crowds and featured 20 cultural institutions leading children in creative art projects. Proceeds from the festival will continue funding for KIDsmART projects including school and after-school programs, artist residencies, and summer art camp.

Debra Woodfork,
assistant professor of communications at Loyola University, was named among '30 Leaders of the Future' in the April issue of Ebony magazine. The national publication spotlighted 30 African Americans age 30 and younger who have demonstrated intellectual and community leadership. Woodfork teaches layout and design at Loyola's Shawn Donnelley Center for Nonprofit Communication.

Bertrand Butler and Capt. Harry Mendoza
worked together to help pull off a successful Mardi Gras Indians Super Sunday celebration April 3, without the police-community conflict that marred an earlier St. Joseph's Night event at A.L. Davis Park. Butler is a member of the Mardi Gras Indians Council and an event organizer; Mendoza commands the New Orleans Police Department's Special Operations unit.

The Tangipahoa Parish School Board
may not like a federal court order barring the incorporation of prayer into school-related events, but it is still required to comply with it. Shortly after the board opened a meeting with a students' program featuring the Lord's Prayer, a baseball game between two Tangipahoa schools began with a prayer read over the P.A. system. The latest incident appears to violate a federal consent agreement the board signed, prohibiting such prayers as part of school functions.

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