By Kevin Chiri

Met an awful nice new person at L’Observateur’s office last week when David Burns, an estate planner from Hammond, came by the office to drop off a little business for us.

Dave is putting on a special estate planning evening for seniors, age 55 and older, which will be offered here in LaPlace next week.

Not only will there be gobs of great information for seniors to help them in their estate planning and financial matters, but here is the really great part—FREE FOOD!

That’s right, you can have a free dinner or lunch at Bull’s Corner Restaurant on Airline Highway. The only catch is that you have to call ahead and make reservations, so don’t waste any time and get your name on the list by calling Dave at 1-800-308-4416.

The dinner will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 12 at 6 p.m., and the lunch is the next day, Wednesday, Feb. 13, at 11 a.m.

Just a few of the topics that will be discussed include:

**How to leave your CD’s, mutual funds and annuities to your heirs income tax free.

**How to minimize or eliminate your Social Security from being taxed.

**How to never outlive your retirement income.

**Learn how to avoid estate interference by lawyers upon death.

**Avoiding probate cost: A will versus a living trust.

**How to make sure the IRS is not your number one beneficiary.

Dave is president of Burns Estate Planning, LLC, which is the oldest estate planning firm in Louisiana.

So give Dave a quick call now since the room is definitely limited and you can attend by reservation alone.

I know we are already in February, and I’m a little late in making this mention in my column, but here it is anyway.

Thanks!

That’s right, I wanted to pass out a great big thank you to the folks in the entire River Region from us here at L’Observateur.

Why?

I’m close to making it four years here at L’Observateur as your newest publisher, and from what I know, our paper had gotten a little laugh here or there around the parish for the way we had gone through publishers in recent years.

If my math is correct, and it is probably getting to need a calculator to figure this, I am the fifth publisher here in not a lot more than six years. At least, when I came here those numbers were very close to the facts.

I don’t know what you guys did to those other publishers, but you sure must have been tough on them. All I know is that whatever problem there was before, I’m not finding it. Heck, I actually like it here!

So the thanks isn’t just because you allowed me to stay here without running me out of town, but it’s especially because L’Observateur just completed its third consecutive record breaking year for the most success the paper has had in its history.

There have been some amazing ups and downs since I came here, what with a little lady named Katrina and all. Obviously there is always a transition when a new sheriff comes to town. (Hey, I like the way that sounds.) People have to learn about me, and goodness knows I’ve got a lot of people to learn about myself.

And don’t get me started on my greatest challenge of learning all the names of the many people I have met.

But I keep working on it, so if you aren’t upset with me for asking you one more time what your name is, I will keep on trying. Please remember that with the kind of job I have, which includes going out in the public a lot to cover things or just mix with the social crowd, there are hundreds, yes, even thousands of new names I am trying to learn. For you, it’s just one new name—Kevin Chiri.

So thanks for all the support you have given me, and you have given our paper. I have been telling our staff here for a pretty good while that I believe the group we have running the paper right now is absolutely the best overall group we have had since I’ve been here. The reason I say that is because I sincerely believe everyone in our building now has a sincere desire to do their best on the job all the time, with our main goal of putting out the best community paper we can.

If there is anything I would like to ask for help with again, it is for our local schools and community groups, as well as churches, to please make more of an effort to turn things in to us. The vast majority of our community news or Lifestyle news comes from stories or pictures being submitted, and our policy is to use every bit of it that comes in. Unfortunately, some schools in particular just don’t submit stuff much at all, and then there are parents or teachers who think we are showing favoritism. That’s nowhere close to the truth since we want as much local news as we can get. But with only 12 full-time employees running this place, we still need you folks to help us out by dropping off, or e-mailing in your stuff so we can run it. If you send it in, and don’t see it appear, please, please call me so we can work it out since we want all of the local news that we can get.

So once again, thanks very much to you, the local community for your support for….dare I say it….The Lobster.

Kevin Chiri is Publisher of L’Observateur and can be reached at (985) 652-9545 or at kchiri@bellsouth.net