The Purpose of the Community Advisory Board is:

1. To advise Junior League of Lafayette in areas of finance and public relations
2. To inform of opportunities for voluntarism and community involvement
3. To educate community leaders about Junior League
4. To serve as resources for information for Junior League

The Community Advisory Board for Junior League of Lafayette has been established to enhance public relations and to seek objective opinions from community leaders on certain issues. It is a committee developed to provide a two-way communication link between the League and our community.

The composition of the Community Advisory Board consists of 10 community leaders and seven Junior League of Lafayette members. The representatives from Junior League are the President, President-Elect, Executive Vice President, Community Vice President, Communications Vice President, Secretary, Sustaining Advisor to the Board and the immediate Past President.

Ten community leaders are selected for a two-year term, with half rotating off each year. Terms begin June 1 and end May 31 of each year. No community member shall serve consecutive terms.

Meetings of the Community Advisory Board will be chaired by the President-Elect, who is responsible for the orientation of new board members.

2021-2023 Term

Kevin Blanchard	Terry Dugas	Dr. Anita Hazelwood	Becky Kreamer	Brach Myers

2022-2024 Term

Anita Begnaud	Hollis Conway	Chris Cook	Troy Wayman	Captain Sonny Stutes

CAB Member Bios

2021-2023 Term

Kevin Blanchard

is the executive director of the Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority (the “LPTFA”). The LPTFA participates in community developed related investments that benefit Lafayette. Kevin is an attorney and former journalist who was most recently the Chief Operating Officer for Southern Lifestyle Development, a real estate development company. Kevin worked for former Mayor-President Joey Durel, as both Chief Development Officer and Public Works Director. Kevin’s civic involvement has included being chair of the Leadership Institute of Acadiana as well as the citizen’s committee that drove the development of Lafayette’s first comprehensive plan. Kevin was the Lafayette Parish Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer in 2014. Kevin and his wife, Heather, have three girls.

Terry Dugas

is the Marketing Representative and Community Liaison for the Acadiana Area Human Services District. Terry is a graduate of UL Lafayette (2013), and recently completed the Leadership Lafayette program through the Leadership Institute of Acadiana (Class 33). He also currently serves as Board President of the Public Relations Association of Louisiana: Acadiana Chapter. He has served on the board for PRAL for three years. Terry is a volunteer with United Way of Acadiana, having participated in four food distributions in 2020 as well as meal deliveries. Terry also serves on the Health Services Advisory Committee for the Early Head Start program through United Way of Acadiana. He is trained in Facilitation for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion conversations through Conversation Starters and has a background in public relations, marketing, working in nonprofits and DEI facilitation.

Dr. Anita Hazelwood

is a professor and Head of the Department of Allied Health Professions in the College of Nursing and Allied Health Professions at UL Lafayette, where she has been on the faculty for 45 years. Anita is currently the Lafayette General Medical Center/BORSF Professor in Health Sciences and past Louisiana Health Systems/BORSF Professor in Health Care Administration. She holds a doctorate in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Higher Education and is a credentialed Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA).  Anita was the first Fellow of the American Health Information Association (FAHIMA) from Louisiana and is a nationally recognized coding specialist and speaker. Anita is the author of several leading texts in the field of health information management. On the national level, she is currently Chair of HIMAC, the Health Information Management Accreditation Council which evaluates health information management (HIM) programs at the associate, baccalaureate, and master’s degree levels and offers recommendations on accreditation to the CAHIIM (Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education) of which she is a Board member. A past president and board member of the Louisiana Health Information Management Association (LHIMA), Anita received that group’s Distinguished Member Award in 1997, the LHIMA Career Achievement Award in 2017, and the Outstanding Volunteer Award in 2018. Locally, Anita was the recipient of the Women of Excellence Award in the Public Service category from the Lafayette Commission on the Needs of Women in 2008. She has been a member of the Lafayette General Health Systems Membership Corporation since 2013.

Becky Kreamer

is Director of Education at United Way of Acadiana. She has been instrumental in spreading The Leader in Me to schools across Louisiana, specifically in the amazing 64 schools that she is grateful to serve. Her background as an educator, attorney, and FranklinCovey coach helped her to hone the skills required to develop highly effective leaders in the region and beyond. She began her career as a classroom teacher in Jefferson Parish and attended law school at night. After graduating, she practiced law for several years until deciding to return to her first love, education. Becky’s work involves business and education consulting in management, leadership, project management, program/process design, needs analysis, and human resources. She was a member of Lafayette Education Foundation and is an instructor and course designer for the University of Louisiana Continuing Education. She resides in Lafayette with her husband, Chuck, and four children.

Brach Myers

is Senior Vice President of Growth and Strategic Partnerships at LHC Group, a Nasdaq listed company providing post-acute healthcare services across the United States. His role carries the responsibility for growing LHC Group’s patient base, and he leads a team of over 1000 sales team members throughout the country. During his career he has helped to foster partnerships between the Acadiana-based company and some of the leading healthcare systems and providers in the World; such as Ochsner Health System, Baptist Health System, Lifepoint Health, and Christus Health. Brach is a graduate of the Center for Creative Leadership’s LDP Program, has previously served the Emerging Leaders Council for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry (LABI), and is a current appointee of the Lafayette Parish Government Recreation Commission. Brach is a new 2021 addition to the board of directors for the Community Foundation of Acadiana, where he serves on both the Finance and Business Development Committees. In addition, Brach currently serves as Chairman of The Boys & Girls Clubs in Louisiana, Vice Chairman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Louisiana Alliance, and the investment approval committee board for the Ochsner / Lafayette General Foundation Innovation Fund. Brach has served as past Finance Chair for the St. Landry Parish Veterans Memorial Project and past Chair of the Louisiana Boys & Girls Clubs Area Council. Born and raised in Palmetto, a small, rural town in north St. Landry Parish, Brach along with his wife Carly and son Emile, now reside in the historical Bendel Gardens neighborhood in Lafayette.

2022-2024 Term

Anita Begnaud

As the leader of Downtown Development Authority and Downtown Lafayette Unlimited, Anita works with Downtown stakeholders, developers, government representatives, and community leaders to create a stronger and more dynamic Downtown for Lafayette. Before joining Downtown Lafayette, Anita worked as the Senior Vice President of Communications and Governmental Affairs for One Acadiana, and she has been actively involved in Lafayette leadership organizations like Leadership Institute of Acadiana and the 705. She currently serves as a board member of South Louisiana Community College Foundation and CASA of SoLA. Anita understands the regional importance of a vibrant urban core and she works to provide a strategic vision for leaders in Lafayette to utilize and grow Downtown as a flagship district for culture and commerce in Acadiana.

Fun fact: Anita is originally from Church Point, Louisiana and has lived her entire life within a 20 mile radius of the heart of our city. As Herman Fuselier likes to say, “It takes a girl from Church Point to run Downtown Lafayette!”

Hollis Conway

Hollis Conway is a track and field All-American and Two-Time Olympic Medalist. Conway was the top ranked high jumper in the U.S. seven straight years from 1988 – 1994 and in the world for two of those years (1990 and 1991). Conway, John Thomas, and Dwight Stones are the only Americans to win two Olympic medals in the high jump.

Born in Chicago, Illinois and a native of Shreveport, Louisiana, Conway went 7-8¾ in the event at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Korea, setting a US collegiate record and earning a silver medal.  He won a bronze medal in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain after going 7- 8½. 

In 1989, Conway broke the American record twice in the high jump, winning the NCAA outdoor track and field championships at 7-9¾ and the U.S. Olympic festival at 7-10. He earned his first of two world No. 1 rankings in 1990 when he swept both the US indoor and outdoor titles and won the Goodwill Games. He had 10 jumps of 7-8 or better that year.

A six-time NCAA All American and a three-time NCAA champion at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then university of Southwestern Louisiana) he also won ten United States championships. He established a new NCAA indoor record of 2.37m (7 feet 9 ½ inches) at the 1989 NCAA Indoor Championships. His records remain two of the longest standing NCAA and championship meet records to date. Conway was ranked No. 1 in the world in 1991 by winning the IAAF World Indoor Championships in athletics in Seville, Spain with an American indoor record of 7-10 ½ inches. He still holds that record today.

Since his retirement in 2001, Hollis has rapidly become one of America’s leading motivational and inspirational speakers. With over 25 years of experience, he has fashioned his expertise into world-class programs that are able to help you get the results you desire! These presentations are not just feel-good messages, they are entertaining, informative, inspirational and full of action and direction.

Chris Cook

Chris Cook – Vice President and General Manager of broadcast and digital operations KLFY-TV. Throughout his more than 20-year career in broadcasting, Chris has worked to grow ratings while building effective sales teams and forging relationships with the community. He is extremely familiar with the Laffy market and KLFY-TV, having lived and worked in the Hub City for nearly 25 years.

His appointment as Vice President and General Manager of KLFY-TV is only the newest challenge in his years of service to the station and the Laffy community. His previous roles at the television station included videographer for the news department before moving on to become promotions coordinator, marketing director, digital sales manager, and local sales manager.

Chris returns to Lafayette from WISH-TV in Indianapolis where he served as Director of Sales. He also worked as General Sales Manager for KLAF-TV and KADN-TV in Lafayette, overseeing sales strategy and operations for both television stations and their digital operations. Chris has been very involved in the Lafayette community throughout his career, working with The Boys & Girls Clubs of Acadiana on their annual fundraiser, the “Food for Families” food drive benefiting FoodNet, and The Knights of Columbus “Coats for Kids” drive.

Troy Wayman

Troy Wayman serves as president and CEO of One Acadiana (1A), the leading economic development agency for the nine-parish Acadiana region located in South Louisiana.

Mr. Wayman joined the organization in 2018. Under his stewardship, 1A is focused on improving the regional business environment, cultivating diversified economic development, and building on 1A’s nationally recognized success in implementing programs that spur economic growth and competitiveness.

With more than 20 years of experience, and as a Certified Economic Developer (CEcD), Mr. Wayman has earned a reputation as a dynamic and trusted professional. Prior to joining 1A, he served as the vice president of economic development for the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, where under his leadership, the region experienced the creation of more than 8,000 jobs and nearly $3 billion in capital investment. His previous experience also includes roles as the business development director for JESCO Construction, and tourism sales manager and director of economic development for the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce.

As a civic leader, Mr. Wayman served as a founding board member of the Montgomery chapter of the First Tee, a youth golfing program that teaches life skills through the game of golf. He is a past president of the Economic Development Association of Alabama (EDAA) and past chairman of the Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council (SAWDC). Mr. Wayman also served on the boards of Goodwill Easter Seals and the Warrior Tombigbee Waterway Association while in Alabama.

Mr. Wayman is a graduate of Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama and the Economic Development Institute through the department of continuing education at the University of Oklahoma. He was credentialed as a Certified Economic Developer through the American Economic Development Council in 1997. Mr. Wayman and his wife, Beatriz, are proud parents to daughter, Sophia and son, Ethan.

Sonny Stutes

Captain Sonny Stutes has served our community for over three decades. Having grown up in the heart of Acadiana and spending much of his time specifically in the downtown area, Captain Stutes attended the University of Southwest Louisiana. During his tenure at USL, he began his career with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office. For Captain Stutes, his career as a law enforcement officer was not just about serving the community, but truly became his passion. Currently serving in his 34th year with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office, he oversees and serves as the Commander for the Criminal Investigations Division.

Before rising in the ranks, he served in corrections, patrol, investigations, criminal intelligence, and narcotics. In his tenure, he has consistently built a team of Acadiana’s best and brightest law enforcement officers.

In addition to his duties with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff’s Office, Captain Stutes oversees security for the CAJUNDOME & Convention Center. Through all the different facets of his public service, Captain Stutes maintains a strong philosophy of always working to leave every situation, person, or assignment better than how
he found it. He has been married to Ellen Stutes for 24 years and together they are the proud parents of two daughters.