Discover Lafayette welcomes Hunter Moody and Gene Todaro, proprietors of CuGino, their beautiful Sicilian restaurant located at 117 South College Road in Lafayette.

This episode is presented in special partnership with Eat Lafayette by Lafayette Travel, celebrating the locally owned restaurants that help define our community and our culture.

CuGino may be relatively new to Lafayette’s restaurant scene, but there are generations of restaurant experience behind it. Hunter Moody grew up in one of Lafayette’s best-known restaurant families, while Gene Todaro brought authentic Sicilian cooking to Acadiana more than four decades ago as one of t...

Discover Lafayette welcomes Missy Rogers, founder and president of Noble Plastics, an advanced manufacturing company headquartered in Grand Coteau, Louisiana.

Noble Plastics is a remarkable Acadiana success story. What began in 2000 with one injection molding machine and Missy as the company’s sole employee has grown into a sophisticated manufacturing operation specializing in precision injection molding, engineering and robotic automation.

A mechanical engineer by training, Missy built Noble Plastics around a deceptively simple idea: solve difficult problems for customers and be willing to manufacture things others say cannot be done.

But as Missy sh...

Dr. Charles Boustany, retired cardiovascular surgeon and former six-term member of Congress representing South Louisiana from 2005 to 2017, joins Discover Lafayette to recount an extraordinary and deeply personal journey to Ukraine, where he traveled with his longtime friend and former Kentucky Congressman Geoff Davis to witness firsthand the human toll of Russia’s war upon Ukraine.

The two former congressmen made the trip at their own expense. They went not as elected officials or representatives of the United States government, but as concerned Americans determined to listen, learn and better understand a conflict that Charles believes has profound im...

Alyson Habetz: Coming Home to Lead Louisiana Softball with Faith, Purpose and Heart

Alyson Habetz, head coach of Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns Softball, joins Discover Lafayette to share the remarkable journey that brought her from the baseball fields of Crowley to collegiate and professional competition, a 25-year coaching career at the University of Alabama, and ultimately back home to lead the program where her softball story began.

We were honored to have legendary coach Yvette Girouard join us for this conversation. Girouard founded the Ragin’ Cajuns softball program and coached Alyson during her years as a stud...

For nearly 25 years, Leonard Louviere has been one of the most familiar faces in Lafayette’s restaurant community, serving as general manager and an investor in Zea Rotisserie & Bar. But Leonard’s story in hospitality began long before Zea opened its doors in Lafayette.

In this episode of Discover Lafayette, Leonard joins Jan Swift to share his journey from working in restaurants, bars and hotels while attending USL, to spending 15 years overseeing food and beverage operations at the Cajundome, and ultimately taking a leap of faith that would shape the next chapter of his life.

This...

Dr. Thomas Sammons – Bringing Technology, Compassion and a Preventive Approach to Dentistry

Dr. Thomas “Tom” Sammons of Dental Artistry joins Discover Lafayette to discuss his path into dentistry, his commitment to continuing education and advanced technology, and his philosophy that good dental care is about far more than simply fixing teeth.

A Youngsville native and UL Lafayette graduate, Dr. Sammons grew up in Acadiana after his family moved here in 1995. His father, Tom Sammons, taught architecture at UL Lafayette, and education was strongly emphasized in the Sammons household. Dr. Sammons graduated summa cum laude with a Bach...

Lafayette Parish Tax Assessor Justin Centanni joins Discover Lafayette to explain the duties of his office, how property values are determined, and what property owners need to know about the upcoming 15-day assessment review period.

Justin is Lafayette Parish’s 26th Tax Assessor, but his professional path to the office was anything but traditional. With a background in technology and data management, he previously worked in Washington, D.C., for the Department of Defense, helping develop software behind the military’s smart identification cards. He later worked at IberiaBank, where he managed a team responsible for backend data...

Jessica Moroux, owner of Acadiana Hyperbarics in Lafayette, joins Discover Lafayette to discuss mild hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the personal experiences that led her to the field, and her belief in giving the body the conditions it needs to heal and function at its best.

A Lafayette native, Jessica earned her nursing degree from UL-Lafayette and began her career at Lafayette General, working on several different floors as she searched for the area of nursing that felt like the right fit. Her professional path eventually moved beyond traditional hospital care and into Rolfing, movement therapy, and integrative wellness.<...

Sylvia Turner, affectionately known to generations of Lafayette families as “Ms. T,” joins Discover Lafayette to reflect upon a remarkable life of teaching, music, faith, and service to others.

For more than five decades, beginning in 1972, Sylvia taught children and adults to swim in the backyard pool of her Lafayette home. But anyone fortunate enough to have taken lessons from Ms. T knows she taught much more than swimming.

She taught safety. She taught respect. She taught children to encourage one another, to follow rules, to appreciate their parents, and perhaps most importantly, to believe they...

Discover Lafayette welcomes Katie Ferguson, whose remarkable story is one of resilience, advocacy, and choosing purpose in the face of life’s most unexpected challenges.

A Lafayette native, communications professional, and passionate community advocate, Katie has lived through two extraordinary journeys. First, she became the long term caregiver for an Army veteran whose life changed forever after a catastrophic spinal cord injury. Years later, while feeling completely healthy, a free heart screening uncovered a life threatening ascending aortic aneurysm caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, leading to open heart surgery that ultimately saved her life.

Leadership isn’t about managing time. It’s about making better choices.

That is the central message from Christina Olivier, co-founder and Managing Partner of Excelerant, whose thoughtful conversation on Discover Lafayette challenges many of the assumptions we make about work, productivity, and success.

Christina co-founded Excelerant in 2003 with business partner Elise Bouchner after realizing that growing companies needed more than legal advice or technical expertise, they needed leaders who knew how to develop people. What began as The Training Source evolved into Excelerant, an award-winning, woman-owned leadership development and organizational consulting firm serving organizations thro...