by Malcolm Butler
As Mother Nature toys with the emotions of residents across the southern part of the United States, officials with Louisiana Tech and Grambling State as well as Cedar Creek School, Lincoln Preparatory School and the Lincoln Parish School Board are monitoring information coming from the National Weather Service.
Louisiana Tech Executive Vice President for External Cami Geisman said Wednesday that the University is already working towards decisions on any changes on both the campus and athletics side as the weekend approaches.
“We sent out a Tech Alert (Wednesday) morning,” said Geisman. “We are working with the National Weather Service to monitor the forecast and our emergency response team will meet (this) afternoon. We will communicate any operational changes after that meeting.”
Geisman noted a number of schedule changes on the athletics side already, including the movement of the Bulldog basketball game against Kennesaw State from Saturday to Friday at 1 p.m. A number of other Tech Athletic events that were scheduled for the weekend have already been canceled or postponed.
Geisman said the University would continue to communicate any decisions to faculty, staff and students through Tech Alert as well as through the school’s website and social media platforms.
Grambling State campus operations will close at noon on Thursday, January 22. Any classes scheduled after noon will transition to virtual delivery. Operations and classes will continue with virtual delivery on Friday, January 23, and Monday, January 26. Essential employees will report to campus as directed.
For more details on GSU, click HERE.
Lincoln Parish School Board Superintendent Ricky Durrett said Wednesday that he expects all schools to be open on Friday, but that they would make a call today or Friday on plans for Monday. Durrett said the school board would leave any rescheduling of Friday night basketball games to the respective schools.
Ruston High principal Dan Gressett said the Bearcats hoops games against Neville have been moved to Wednesday, Jan. 28.
Simsboro High head coach Adam Wodach said that the varsity games at Providence originally scheduled for Friday have been rescheduled for Monday, Feb. 2.
Choudrant High was already scheduled to play tonight at Saline (instead of Friday) so those games will be played as originally scheduled.
Cedar Creek Principal Kenny Henderson said that the school (K through 12) is monitoring the forecast and decisions will be made on school and outside school activities over the next day or so.
“We are more concerned about Monday,” said Henderson. “Whatever residual will still be here or will the system move slower. I don’t see it speeding up. I could see it slowing down and impacting Monday and possibly Tuesday. I think Friday will be okay and we will be out of school before the system arrives.”
Henderson did say that the school will monitor the system and that Friday evenings varsity basketball games against Glenbrook and Saturday’s pee wee games in Monroe could be impacted.
“We will probably cancel our pee wee games on Saturday, even though we haven’t even made that final decision yet,” said Henderson. “We probably won’t be traveling to Monroe to play those games.
“Whatever weather we get will hit (the Glenbrook area) before it hits us. They have to be able to get back home. We may see about moving game times up earlier Friday. I will talk to my coaches and we will look at the weather and see what is possible.”
UPDATE (Thursday, 9 a.m.): Cedar Creek and Glenbrook will play Friday, but are moving gametime up to 5 p.m. for varsity girls followed by varsity boys.
Lincoln Preparatory School Director of Athletics Johnny Simmons said that the school had already rescheduled varsity hoops from Friday to tonight due to a previously scheduled water project by the City of Grambling (which has now been postponed due to potential weather).
The Panthers girls will tip at 5:30 p.m. and boys following tonight at home against Jonesboro Hodge.
“Other than that, school-wise we won’t know more until later in the week,” said Simmons. “We have kids coming from Farmerville, Homer and Jonesboro. When kids are coming in from that far away, we will always error on the side of safety. No need to make them make that long drive in questionable conditions. So we will monitor the forecast and make a call when that time comes.”
