Do it yourself: HGTV home renovation expert Holly Baker will offer remodeling tips to flood-affected homeowners at Baton Rouge General’s upcoming Life’s a Canvas: Home Edition event. The free event will take place on Thursday, Oct. 20, and is open to participants 21 years or older. Baker is the star of a new HGTV show in which she’ll transform unsightly New Orleans homes. The show premieres this fall. In a news release, Baker says she decided to team with Baton Rouge General after getting requests for tips and ideas from people remodeling flooded homes. “As someone who loves Louisiana’s people and culture, I was heartbroken to hear about the devastating floods in the Baton Rouge area,” she says in a news release. The event will feature food, live music, a panel of physicians and emotional health experts, and a home renovation discussion and do-it-yourself project.
Moving up: Louisiana’s agriculture department says Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain has been elected president of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. As The Associated Press reports, Strain succeeds Nebraska Director of Agriculture Greg Ibach as head of the organization, which met over the weekend in Lincoln, Nebraska. In a news release, Strain says his election means Louisiana will have a key leadership role in advancing food safety, developing the next Farm Bill, and other critical issues affecting farmers, ranchers and other producers. NASDA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit association which represents the elected and appointed commissioners, secretaries, and directors of the departments of agriculture in all 50 states and four U.S. territories.
Looking for trends: The Water Institute of the Gulf, in partnership with the University of Arizona Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, has been awarded a $550,000 research grant from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to explore and assess socioeconomic trends in coastal Louisiana. The researchers will examine the multiple causes of demographic and social changes that have occurred over the last half century, according to a news release. They also will examine the extent to which socioeconomic and demographic changes in Louisiana’s coastal communities are directly linked to particular oil or non-oil related activities or events.
