Free Republic

Fortunately for the children caught in its sill, there was more than one teenage lifesaver out on the Pearl River Navigational Canal last Saturday. Two friends fishing there wound up pulling a 5-year-old girl to safety. A.J. Holmes and his buddy, Josh Miley, both 19 of Bush, were out checking their fishing lines Saturday along the western edge of the Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge. They were just about to check the last one they'd set when the saw a water sopped teen motioning to them from the bank just above a sill. The soaked person turned out to be...

A boating accident in St. Tammany Parish Saturday (March 28) left one man dead and a Folsom mother missing after her three children were rescued thanks, in part, to a 16-year-old boy fishing nearby, authorities said. A 14-foot flat boat capsized on the Pearl River Canal, which winds from Bogalusa to the Pearl River in Slidell, about 5:30 p.m. near Sun, according to information provided by St. Tammany Fire District 9 in Bush, the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and the St. Tammany Sheriff's Office. Terry O'Keefe Jr., 41, who was operating the boat, was found dead about 8...

Like most Louisiana boys, 16-year-old Leyton Page of Bogalusa loves the outdoors. Unlike most anyone, Page is a genuine hero. Page lived with his father until two weeks ago when the Pine High School student came home to find his father dead of natural causes. His grandfather also died in February, and Page was understandably blue after losing what another relative called "the two most important men in his life." Following their deaths, the grieving sportsman bought a 12-gauge shotgun for hunting. Around 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Page took his boat out on to the usually placid, dark water of the...