Ville Platte’s Fontenot named 2017 Miss Smoked Meat

By: TONY MARKS
Associate Editor

New royalty was crowned Sunday at the Louisiana Smoked Meat Festival Pageant. The newly crowned queens were Miss Smoked Meat Leah Fontenot and Ms. Festival de la Viande Boucanee’ Brittany Broussard.
Leah Fontenot is the 19-year-old daughter of Kirk and Anita Fontenot. She works at Sonic Drive-in as a waitress and attends college at LSU-E where she is a freshman majoring in english with a minor in secondary education.
After finishing college she plans on learning and in turn teaching, learning all about the world, and teaching all that she can to the youth especially her love of music, theater, art, cultures, language, and people.
Her hobbies are on-line shopping, working, school, photography, going to plays and musicals, making new friends, hanging out with everyone, learing about the outside world and other cultures, and competing in pageants.
The on-stage question posed to the contestants was, “If you met a person that lost the ability to taste, how would you describe the taste of smoked meat?”
“The taste of smoked meat,” Fontenot replied, “is filled with flavor of cultures and seasonings as old as time.”
“I didn’t think it was gonna be that way,” she said when asked about what was going through her mind as her name was being announced. “I honestly thought my counterpart did better, but it’s all in the eyes of the judges.”
As Miss Smoked Meat, she plans to “travel as much as I can, meet as many people as I can, represent Smoked Meat as well as I can, and just have a fun great year.”
The first alternate was 18-year-old Haley Vidrine, the daughter of Wayne and Jenny Vidrine. She is a freshman at LSU-A majoring in general studies, and she enjoys hanging out with friends and family, traveling, meeting new people, playing tennis, playing bingo at local nursing homes, and volunteering.
Brittany Broussard, Ms. Festival de la Viande Boucanee, is the 23-year-old wife of Eric Broussard. She works as the front-desk associate and night auditor at the Hilton Garden Inn in Lafayette, La.
She received her under-graduate degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where she appeared on the Dean’s List for three semesters. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in criminal justice from Lamar University.
After her time in graduate school, she plans on starting a career as a probation and parole agent as well as planning on starting a family some time in the near future.
Her hobbies include reading long novels, cooking tasty meals, meeting new people, and traveling the United States. She also volunteers as a crisis line victim’s advocate for Hearts of Hope in Lafayette, La.
Broussard’s favorite thing about the Smoked Meat Festival is the music, because she loves “the diversity of the artists and believes it is important to keep the Louisiana tradition of Zydeco and Cajun music alive.”
“I’m blessed and honored to receive this title,” she said after the pageant. “I’ve competed for this title due to my late grandfather who was in the Korean War and my grandfather who was in the Army National Guard.”
First alternate was Kelly Fontenot, 20, and the second alternate was Crystal Theresa Primeaux, 38.
The competition for Teen Miss Smoked Meat was more anti-climatic as the reigning queen Zoe Anne Courville was crowned for another year. She is the 17-year-old daughter of the late Barry Courville and Evelyn Courville. She is a senior at Port Barre High School, and she plans on attending LSU-E and majoring in ultrasound technology. She enjoys cheerleading, dancing, and spending time with family and friends.
“It is a blessing,” she said about repeating as Teen Miss Smoked Meat. “I cannot wait to represent this festival again.”
Look forward to see who was crowned at The Smoked Meat Youth Pageant in the Sunday, June 4, 2017, edition of The Gazette.