Episode 48 Robert Trudeau -”Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home”

Historian Robert Trudeau sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

 

0:42 1. Let’s start here today.

 

I’ve asked a couple of our guests a similar question and it feels only appropriate to ask you. You have a friend or friends coming to visit Shreveport-Bossier. They’ve never been here before and only have two days in town. Where all do you take them to give a sense of your Shreveport-Bossier?

 

3:28 2. You once said:

 

“Renovation, new energy and recognition of the history of our town is the key to our future.”

 

For the last several years, you have led walking tours, one east of Common downtown and one west of Common. I also believe you do one through Betty Virginia Park.

 

I was fortunate enough to do the two downtown tours recently with you and it gave me a far deeper sense of appreciation for so many aspects of our community. After doing the tours, I told you I felt that every Caddo Parish high school student should do these two tours with you and I hope to help see if I can’t make that collaboration possible.

 

A recurring theme on our podcast has been our community’s low self-esteem and our difficulty at keeping our best and brightest. In my opinion, participating with you on these tours can’t help but increase someone’s feelings for our community and to do the tours with our future while they’re still young can only be a positive thing.

 

Any way, there are several possible questions here. First, would you please share a couple of your favorite stories about our community’s past that you’ve learned through your research to prepare for these different walking tours.

 

13:23 3. I’ve known you since I came back to town in 2005 and you always struck me as someone who sees opportunity where others see challenges. I recently stumbled on this quote of yours:

 

“I love Shreveport because it is a city of opportunity. When you look around the 600 block of Texas street, as I do you probably see an aging city. But I see beautiful, glamorous brick work and plenty of opportunity for businesses to be started up and to follow in the footsteps of people who were very successful in this block in a bygone era.”

 

How do we get more of our people to feel great about living and being in Shreveport-Bossier?

 

16:42 4. At the end of 2016, , after 35 years, you retired from teaching at Caddo Magnet High where you had taught world geography, video journalism and fine arts survey.

 

As someone who spent a career with our young students, how do you think we do a better job in the future of convincing our best and brightest to come back here after college?

 

20:22 5. In your opinion, what’s holding us back from being one of the next, great small American cities?

 

23:45 6. What makes you optimistic about our future?