High stepping: “The Golden Band from Tigerland” has marched its way onto The Huffington Post‘s top 10 list of The Best Marching Bands for 2011-12. The LSU Tiger Marching Band “dazzles audiences with their consistent talent and their ‘Golden Girls,’ ” the paper says. “The band received the Sudler Trophy in 2002, and in 2008 won a contest sponsored by ESPN, Paramount Pictures, and Lucasfilm called ‘Battle of the Bands.’ ” Check out the complete top 10 list, including links to performance videos, here.
Playing the field: The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Louisiana farmers are planting more soybeans this year than they have in 14 years, but less rice—and may tie a record low for cotton. The USDA’s July crop report says Louisiana farmers are planting 1.14 million acres of soybeans, the highest since 1.2 million acres in 1998 and 70,000 acres more than projected in March. They’ve planted about 400,000 acres of rice, down 23,000 from 2011 and 55,000 acres less than they’d planned in March. Officials expect 230,000 acres to be planted in cotton, tying a low-acreage record set in 2009.
Here comes the sun king: Sun Dog Racer, a solar car designed and built by Baton Rouge Magnet High School students, will be among 31 such cars from 23 states and Puerto Rico competing at the 2012 Solar Car Challenge at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth this weekend. The students involved in the project have been working on the car for a year and compose the only team from Louisiana in the competition. The competition wraps up July 19 after about four days of racing.
Slick returns: Devon Energy recently completed its fourth horizontal well in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale, and the initial production test figures from the St. Helena Parish well submitted this week show the strongest oil production results of the company’s Tuscaloosa wells drilled to date, DNR Secretary Scott Angelle announced today. The well is producing 384 barrels of oil per day, he says. Devon also has two productive horizontal wells in East Feliciana Parish and another in Tangipahoa Parish. The company has two other well projects in progress: one in Tangipahoa and one in West Feliciana parishes.
Editor’s note: John Maginnis is on vacation this week. His column will return next week.
