By T. Scott Boatright
They’re coming home, and they’re doing it for a cause.
Dauzat St. Marie, a music duo that got their start as students at Louisiana Tech University in the band Hydrovibe before making a new and successful home together in Los Angeles and touring with the likes of Pat Benatar and Rick Springfield, will perform at Ruston’s Sundown Tavern at 9 p.m. May 6 with proceeds from the performance going toward funding a MedCamps camper.
This past Christmas, Dauzat St. Marie was set to perform at Sundown Tavern and planned to dedicate some proceeds of that door to fully fund a MedCamps camper.
“In keeping with the season of giving, we really wanted to include a charitable element to our Christmas show, and we wanted to make sure it was a local organization. Sundown recommended MedCamps, who offer fun-filled summer camps free of charge for children with a variety of special needs… and Mat and I immediately fell in love with their program,” St. Marie said.
But that Christmas performance ended up being canceled when the duo became ill, but between Sundown’s and Dauzat St. Marie’s Facebook donation links they still raised over half the funds needed to sponsor a MedCamps camper.
“We were extremely proud to see our online community step up and help us raise so much money after we had to cancel the show, and we’re excited to get back to make up that hometown show and raise the remaining funds to fully fund one lucky MedCamps camper this summer,” said Dauzat, a Ruston native who was born at what was then called Lincoln General Hospital.
That line of thinking is especially important to the duo after sticking together as St. Marie battled and defeated a bout with breast cancer in 2018-19.
And getting to help a program like MedCamps, which is so important to so many people in Lincoln Parish, makes their upcoming performance something they’re really looking forward to.
“We love coming home to play Ruston because at our shows elsewhere in the world, we are ‘Dauzat St. Marie.’ At our shows in Ruston, we are just ‘hometown Mat and Heather,’” Dauzat said. “Our homecoming shows have a unique energy all their own because the crowds consist primarily of longtime friends and diehard supporters … many of whom have been with us since day one.”
