John Pope

2 weeks ago | nola.com | John Pope

Gene Bourg, a New Orleans journalist who, after a career writing and editing newspaper stories, achieved national recognition as a food writer for books and magazines, died Saturday at Winnfield Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. He was 86. The Rev. Louis Sklar, who visited Bourg regularly, confirmed the death. Bourg donated his body to science, Sklar said.

2 weeks ago | nola.com | John Pope

Jay Batt, a New Orleans businessman who represented District A on the City Council for four years, died in his sleep Sunday night. He was 64. No cause of death has been established, but Batt had suffered from diabetes most of his life, according to Bill Kearney IV, a close friend, who confirmed his death. Batt, who served on the council from 2002 to 2006, was a lifelong New Orleanian. He graduated from the Isidore Newman School and Tulane University.

3 weeks ago | nola.com | John Pope

Al Scramuzza, a plain-spoken man whose endearingly hokey commercials for his Gentilly seafood store vaulted him into the pantheon of pitchmen, died Sunday at his Metairie home. He was 97. Scramuzza, who took credit for making crawfish popular in New Orleans, sold mudbugs and other seafood on North Broad Street for 43 years. He promoted his business, Seafood City, with a series of commercials that he wrote, produced and directed himself.

Mar 1, 2025 | nola.com | John Pope

When Howell Crosby was a teenager in the 1970s, he spent three Fat Tuesdays crammed inside the Rex organization’s Boeuf Gras float, pulling the string that made the knife-wielding butcher figure move. He said it was fun inside that box. He was paid, too — $5 for each of the first two years, then $7.50 – but nobody saw him.

Mar 1, 2025 | nola.com | John Pope

When Tatum Lady Reiss reigns as Rex’s consort on Tuesday, she will wear a glittering crown and wield a bejeweled scepter as she beams and acknowledges cheers at the Rex ball. Not long ago Reiss, 22, sat in her family’s Uptown New Orleans living room holding a golden crown, but it wasn’t glittering. Instead, it was plastic, and she had to inflate it to show it off. But no matter. That faux diadem, which Reiss’ father, James J.