Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum.

Located in Jennings City Hall, the museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and viewers like you.

Thank you.

From the bayou to outer space, what impacts will space have on Vermilion Parish and in New Orleans?

Man makes history as the state's first sickle cell patient toured with gene therapy.

Plus, a Louisiana native is making waves in the new Women's Pro Baseball League.

And the skies got loud over Lake Charles.

I'll be hopping into the cockpit for thunder over Louisiana.

Let's get started.

Let's get to it.

Hi everyone.

I'm Christina Jensen and I'm Johnny Atkinson.

Much more on those top stories in a moment on this week's edition of Louisiana The State We're In.

But first, what if you built more than a dozen rocket launch towers in one place?

That's the vision SpaceX has for a remote stretch of Louisiana.

We headed there to a place that could soon become one of the world's busiest rocket launch sites.

We think if you want to go out there and make life multi planetary and not just be a tourist, you know, set a few people come back and if you want to go there and actually build a self growing civilization, you need serious tonnage.

Serious tonnage.

That's Elon Musk's vision for this quiet corner of Louisiana, a place for today.

The landscape is marsh, water and wildlife, but SpaceX wants to turn it into something much different.

I think it's incredibly exciting for the people of Louisiana.

We'll make it such that the public can come and see, you know, like they do at Cape Canaveral.

SpaceX calls it Starbase Louisiana.

An entire spaceport designed to handle up to 30 launches a day.

Musk says the goal is an airliner like operational scale, rapidly expanding the Starlink satellite network and supporting future crewed missions to Mars.

It's easy to see why SpaceX chose this location.

I mean, look around.

There's plenty of open space, but a major spaceport would bring big changes to this quiet coastal community.

But that open space isn't just empty land, it's coastal habitat.

And what happens here is a concern for environmental groups.

Rick Owens with the Louisiana Wildlife Federation took us closer to where SpaceX wants to build in the fresh Water City area just south of Pecan Island.

So we are standing near the space X site.

What concerns you the most about this project?

This site will sit between the Rockefeller Refuge and then White Lake Refuge as well.

You know, it's home to endangered species like the whip and crane.

And the land stretches for miles.

About 125,000 acres of coastal property space purchased from the state.

It's one of the the premiere last wide open.

You know, pieces of marsh like this in the state.

And so, you know, obviously that that forces us to look for balance to to see where development can happen and where it can happen responsibly.

But balancing development with the environment is only part of the conversation.

There are also the people who have built their lives around this land.

I have lived here on this site for about 30 years.

I have lived on the island all my life, you know, and my my son lives right down the road.

My daughter lives right down the road.

My mom lives right down the road.

My sister lives right down the road and everything, you know.

So it's it's it's our way of life.

For David Miller, that way of life is now facing a new reality.

Last week, the governor announced the Starbase Louisiana project in Vermilion Parish.

The event last week.

Were you invited?

No one from the Allen was invited.

No one.

How does that make you feel?

I mean, it's pretty much left us out, you know?

And that's what we've been facing from day one.

We're just, you know, we're expendable.

And for Miller, that sense of being expendable feels more real now as a new legal shield takes effect.

Under House Bill 1098, in aerospace, entity occupying more than 20,000 acres is protected from certain lawsuits trespass, smoke vibrations, sonic booms.

Among the claims covered under the law.

The provision took effect this summer, but just down the road, there's a very different view of what space could bring in Abbeville sets.

Chapman sees opportunity, even welcoming space outside his store, Perry Outfitters, with a sign that reads Welcome Space.

But his support didn't come easily.

I was conflicted in the beginning because I grew up down there.

We still have a lot of land down there.

That's where I hunt.

So I knew based on the location that it was going to be, I was likely losing my hunting land.

But I know that progress has to outweigh my feelings for Chapman.

The potential payoff is bigger than his own property.

They're getting college degrees as engineers, and they're having to go out of state for work because Louisiana doesn't have to work to support them.

People think that only SpaceX employees are going to work at space.

It's going to be everything from janitors to top engineers.

And that's really what's important.

SpaceX commits to three minimum of 3000 jobs SpaceX direct jobs with an average salary of about $93,000.

And just to put that in perspective, that is about 200% of the average salary in Vermilion Parish today.

But when you also look at the indirect jobs, you know, the the project itself will absolutely lead to about another 9000 indirect jobs.

Louisiana Economic Development will also work directly with SpaceX, using state recruitment programs to help train local workers when they brought Starbase to Texas.

The hiring, they're the employees there.

70% of them come from the surrounding Brownsville area.

And the company has committed to us that that's the exact model they will use and want to use here in Louisiana.

That's the promise.

Jobs, investment, a new industry for South Louisiana.

And if SpaceX's plans become reality, this will be a very different place.

That's going to be a fantastic partnership with Louisiana.

Thank you.

Wonderful.

Yeah.

And thank you for your support again.

Oh, no, not a problem.

And the countdown is already beginning.

SpaceX plans to break ground in 2027, with the first Starship launch from Louisiana targeted for 2029.

State officials say infrastructure upgrades tied to the project won't mean higher rates for current customers.

In addition, SpaceX says it plans to engage with residents through community meetings and local events.

Well, let's take a look at what's making headlines this week in the world of sports.

Sports correspondent Victor Howell joins us now with more.

Victor, this is a big weekend for LSU sports.

It is.

And there's been one topic.

And it's not only dominating Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but much of the country and involves LSU football for sure.

We can finally focus on actual football, at least for now.

I think the eyes of the college football world were on the 19th JDC in downtown Baton Rouge on Thursday, where a judge late Thursday night ruled in favor of former college players who dipped their toe in the NFL world.

Being able to come back to college for a fifth year due to the NCAA new five for five rule.

And they want to play at LSU.

And this is important to understand.

This is not NFL players that have been playing in the league for years that are circling back, trying to get on college teams.

This is a group of athletes, 320 athletes around the country, that were basically told by the NCAA that they could not play another year, so they put themselves up for the draft, only to find that out that in the summer, the NCAA changed the rule.

Look, let me give you an example.

In Texas, Cole Hutson, he went to an NFL training camp.

He's playing for the University of Texas, Trinidad Chambliss.

He's in his six year at Ole Miss.

This is only being picked on because it's LSU.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was on the stand for more than three hours, representing the other schools in the conference and the conference itself, and they are all against all of this happening.

LSU was not a plaintiff in this case, but literally, as the commish was taking the stand, we found out that in a federal court in Alabama, the SEC filed suit against LSU and the president and the AD and head coach Lane Kiffin.

So in summary, we are 24 hours away from kickoff.

Players who have never taken a snap for LSU have a ruling that says they can be on the roster.

The school is being sued by its own conference.

The game against Clemson is sold out and I need a nap.

We're going to play some football.

I promise we'll get to there.

When you include Centenary in Shreveport and Louisiana College in Pineville, we have 13 college football teams in action this weekend.

The Lions from southeastern, travel to South Alabama and Mobile looking to rebound from last week's tough home loss to Houston Christian.

The raging Cajuns will be at home in Lafayette to face Lamar.

The cages are picked to finish second in the Sun Belt Western Division this year.

And speaking of the Sun Belt, the Bulldogs from Louisiana Tech will host Northwestern State and Tech's return to the Sun Belt Conference.

Don't forget you can join us tomorrow morning as we get you set for all of the action throughout the state on game notes.

We'll kick it off at 10:00 Saturday morning right here on LPB.

And finally, just three weeks after the LSU community and the college baseball world lost Skip Bertman, Tiger Nation said goodbye this week to former football player and coach Jerry Stovall, who passed away at the start of the week.

Stovall was a unanimous All-American runner up for the Heisman Trophy in his college after his playing career, which included the NFL.

Stovall was coach at LSU, was athletic director at Louisiana Tech, and for two decades headed up the Baton Rouge Sports Foundation.

He's a member of the LSU Sports Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, and much closer to us here at LP.

He was named an LPB legend.

Jerry Stovall was 85 years old.

I'll tell you, it's been tough losing some of these legendary coaches.

I had a chance to work with Jerry when he was at the Sports Foundation in Baton Rouge.

You talk about a gentle giant who just wanted everything positive for kids in the sports activity.

A tough loss for the community, for sure.

Yeah, I love Jerry Stovall.

He was fantastic.

They will be missed.

This weekend we're all all eyes on LSU.

You guys go to the game.

I even got my tie on.

I'll be at the studio cause we're covering all the games.

But look, it's a hard sell.

They were going to be squeezing bodies into that stadium.

We finally get to see the action on the field.

Forget all of this stuff and the courts for now, go out and just enjoy the game.

I've been counting down, I have seats, I'm ready.

Let's go to enjoy it.

Have fun.

All right.

Thank you.

Victor.

A New Orleans man is on track to live his dream of becoming a pilot.

Thanks to a breakthrough treatment.

23 year old Daniel Cressey is the first person in Louisiana to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease.

A local man has made history as the first person in Louisiana to be cured of sickle cell disease.

You may remember after it is the first in his region to be functionally cured of sickle cell disease, who became the first Louisiana patient to get a groundbreaking tonight.

What does that mean for the thousands of others in our state living with the same diagnosis?

I found out about seeing therapy through my pursuit in aviation for 23 year old Daniel Cressey.

The dream of becoming a pilot would lead him to an unexpected path to a cure.

And the answer was gene therapy.

Sickle cell disease has been part of Daniel's life since childhood.

It feels like a rubber band on any given part of your body.

Let's say, like, for example, your leg.

It feels like a rubber band, but like super, super tight, like pulsating in and out, in and out.

And it's nothing you can do about it.

That pain is caused by the way sickle cell changes the body's red blood cells.

Doctor Ben Watkins, with Manning Family Children's Hospital and Tulane University School of Medicine helped treat Daniel.

When you have this mutation under stress, those cells collapse.

Instead of being nice and round.

They become sickle shaped or kind of crescent shaped.

The problem with that is our red blood cells are delivering oxygen to our muscle and our tissues, and the sickle cells get stuck in the very small blood vessels.

For Daniel, gene therapy offered something different, a way to change the course of his disease.

We can actually genetically modify the stem cells so that they now stay nice and round and don't collapse under stress.

But getting to that treatment was a long road from essentially January of 2024.

Up until March of 2026, I was in process of getting gene therapy.

It was a long the the biggest hurdle was insurance.

And then once that finally happened, it was a lot of stem cell collections and transfusions.

And even after the wait, the hardest part was still ahead.

Once we're ready to infuse, you actually have to go through intense chemotherapy.

You're admitted to the hospital.

We have to eliminate the patient's own stem cells that are making the sickle cell, and then replace them with the new cells.

Today, Doctor Watkins calls Daniel's result a functional cure.

We say functional cure because what we're genetically modifying is making the red blood cells so they don't sickle.

We don't eliminate the mutation that causes the sickle cell.

And for Daniel, the change isn't just something doctors can measure.

He can feel it.

Since I got gene therapy, I mean, life has been nonstop for me.

It's been.

It's been great.

I feel this feeling of euphoria.

I told myself, after I get this therapy, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be sad.

Daniel is the first patient in Louisiana to receive this gene therapy and be declared functionally cured of the complications of sickle cell disease in June of 2026.

Daniel rang the ceremonial bell at the hospital, marking the end of his treatment journey.

It feels great, honestly, going down in history as the first person to get this therapy.

It means a lot, and I'm thankful for.

It's a privilege.

Many of the people standing with Daniel have been part of his history since he was a child.

They've seen the pain, the treatments, and now the turning point.

Are you going to pursue being a pilot still?

Yes.

That's actually in process right now.

The FAA, they needed my medical records.

They got that pertaining to sickle cell and the gene therapy.

They called me last week and they said that everything is fine.

They said everything looks good.

And so it's still in process, but it's right there.

It's like right there to be able to see him on the other side, where his dream is getting closer to being recognized and seeing the change in him as he.

This dream hopefully becomes a reality, is really something special to watch.

Now he's ready to see just how far he can fly.

Well, baseball is getting a new look and a woman is leading the charge.

Amanda Jelani was one of the first players to sign on with the Women's Pro Baseball League, opening the door for other female athletes.

With the eighth overall pick in the Women's Pro Baseball League draft.

San Francisco selects.

Amanda, gentlemen.

Joining me today is Amanda Gentleman.

She was born and raised in Louisiana, the very first player to officially sign a contract with Women's Pro Baseball League.

Welcome to the state.

We're in.

Thank you so much for having me.

How does it feel to be a part of this new baseball league?

I mean, it's a dream come true.

I as an athlete, I've played at every single level, played youth sports, pay, middle school, high school, collegiate, I played internationally.

And so as an athlete, you want to play professionally.

It's a goal that every athlete has, but there were limited opportunities for that.

So it means the world to me.

It's a dream come true to be able to play on a professional level.

All right.

You're from Napoleon ville, Louisiana.

You graduated from Nicholls State and now you're in the Hall of Fame there.

What's it like changing from softball all your life to now playing baseball?

It's very challenging at a high level.

I mean, you know, when you're looking at it at a youth level or a low level, it's a ball.

It's a bat.

It's a field.

You hit the ball, you throw the ball.

Those things are seem interchangeable.

But when you play at a high level, such as Division one college softball and then now professional women's baseball, those differences in both games become big things.

For example, I'll give you one example.

You don't get off the base when you base run in softball, but in baseball you take a lead.

So that's just one minor difference to a fan or to someone from the outside that's like, oh, that's a little difference.

But in as a player it's a huge difference.

It's a difference how you grip the ball is different.

The strategies are different.

Your timing is different.

So much of it is little differences and gain in two games that seem similar.

But those differences make it big differences when you're actually playing it.

So for me, it was challenging to switch back and forth.

I did that for three years at Nicholls.

I played my college season and then I played for team USA in the summer.

So I played year round, switching back and forth and it was challenging, but I loved that challenge.

So there are different rules between softball and baseball.

What about the size of the field and the link between the bases and things like that?

Oh yeah, it's a completely different sized field, and that has a lot to do with the size of the ball.

You know, you can send a baseball further in distance than you can a softball.

So a softball field is a little bit smaller than a baseball field.

So that's one of the biggest visual differences right.

When you go watch a baseball game versus a softball game is the fields.

But it's not because, you know, softball players can't hit it for.

So they need a smaller field.

And baseball players can.

So they need a larger field.

It's really a lot to do with the size of the ball.

So in this league, this is the new women's pro baseball league.

There are so far four teams and you're playing all the games at one stadium.

So like I hear the crowds have been pretty big.

Yeah, the crowds have been great.

The atmosphere has been great.

We actually sold out opening weekend and the crowds since have been phenomenal.

It's just really humbling and really cool.

You know, it's every after every game we sign autographs and do meet and greets and more people are coming from our our home cities.

You know, I play for San Francisco.

The amount of people from San Francisco that are that is flying in to watch us play is mind blowing.

So there's more people flying in to watch us play than locals from the cities around where we're at.

You grew up in Louisiana, went to Nicholls State.

What was it like growing up playing baseball in Louisiana and softball?

Yeah, so I started playing baseball with the boys when I was four years old, and I played boys baseball up until I was 11.

And at that point I was getting a little older and I was, you know, starting pitcher, shortstop for the boys baseball.

And my dad felt that I had a future.

But unfortunately, there were no opportunities for girls who play baseball to kind of take it to the next level.

So I switched to softball, play travel softball in Louisiana, you know, obviously got recruited by Nicholls and built my career there in Louisiana.

And I'm a proud Louisiana resident and I'm a proud Nicholls State University alumni.

So I was able to build a really good baseball and softball career, right.

You know, here in Louisiana.

And I'm just super proud of it.

And always going to rep Louisiana no matter where my career takes me.

For all the people out there that want to check you out and check out some of these women's baseball games.

How can they see them?

Yeah.

So they can tune in on ESPN select.

And also Scripps Sports Network is airing a few of our games and that is available on things like Roku or Amazon TV, a lot of your streaming services.

But all of our games are streamed on ESPN select.

So it's really cool that the league got a sponsorship and a partnership with ESPN our first year.

Well, thank you for being here.

And I want to remind everyone to check out Women's Pro Baseball League.

Thank you so much.

Some of the country's top pilots took to the skies over Lake Charles recently.

The Blue Angels and even some homegrown Louisiana aviators showed off their skills at the Thunder Over Louisiana Air Show.

Louisiana has been the host of many airshows going back to the 1970s, and in Lake Charles, those air shows were drawing massive crowds to the region before taking a break in 2020 due to the pandemic.

But the skies over Louisiana are about to experience a major transformation as thunder over Louisiana flies into town.

The international airport hosted this popular statewide attraction, with some of the country's top aerial acts like Red Bull's Flying Bulls and the US Navy's Blue Angels.

This is pretty much a race car in the sky.

You know, there's it's not comfortable to fly.

This is what it's built for, and it does what it does best.

Kevin Coleman is from Louisiana and grew up in a family of pilots, and he's been planning for an aviation career since 1990.

Ever since I was three years old, this is what I wanted to do and started taking aerobatic lessons when I was ten years old, learning to fly upside down.

And this is my 18th year flying airshows professionally.

At the age of 16, Coleman completed his first solo flight before he'd even received his driver's license.

Now, Coleman wows the crowds all around the world, fighting with a Red Bull Air Force.

Pretty much everything you think an airplane cannot do is what I'm going to do.

So I'll make it tumble.

End over end.

I'll be flying upside down ten feet above the ground, pulling up to ten G's.

So ten times your body weight will be what the forces are on me inside the cockpit.

I'll go from 300 miles an hour all the way to zero miles an hour.

So this airplane has enough thrust to wait where it'll hover like a helicopter.

This premiere air show roared back into Louisiana the last weekend of August.

It drew tens of thousands of people with a proud celebration of the region's rich military heritage and the community spirit.

Community loves it, needs it, wants it.

It's just a great day for us.

Great weekend for us to highlight aviation, how aviation has impacted Southwest Louisiana.

Kevin Melton is the executive director at the international airport, which has evolved from a propeller plane training ground in World War two to now an aerospace hub housing military squadrons and a commercial and industrial park for private and military aircraft.

We've got phenomenal performers here, doing great things in the air and on the ground to with some of our ground performers, but it's just an opportunity to bring community members in and really focus some time and energy on our young people, because that's where the love of aviation starts.

Adults and families bought tickets, were given tours, and they were given noise canceling earplugs, and that younger generation of kids were filled with excitement.

Knowing these warning fighter jets may be something they'd never see again.

I'm going to fly playing when you get older.

Yes, sir.

Probably going to go to college, get a pilot's degree and just train there.

So cool.

They're just my passion.

I love coming out and watching them.

One special position riding as a US Navy Blue Angels pilot was one in a contest by a local Lake Charles firefighter.

Fire won the key right along by the US Navy Blue Angels.

Wow.

So what happened?

How did you do it?

So I was nominated by my fire chief for a group of panel with first responders, teachers, medical staff, professionals, and we all were entered into a pool.

Jeremy Thomas was selected from a wide group of entries and wrote in a blue Angel jet.

And he had the right of his life.

Here we go.

I did a loop.

I was able to drive through my own smoke stream.

We wrote upside down.

I was able to hit seven and a half G's, so we did 95% the sound, the speed of sound.

And we did a lot, like, a lot of takeoffs.

A lot of looping dudes.

Spinny dudes who could be dudes.

Whatever you call of Thunder over Louisiana opened its airfield gates at 10 a.m., allowing thousands of spectators to stream onto the tarmac.

Family spent their first few hours exploring the static aircrafts that were parked on the runway, and they were even able to climb on board.

We want to share aviation with everyone that normally doesn't have an opportunity to experience it, so we've come alive.

We do school visits, hospital visits, but we really are impactful here on the ground as a ground attraction at these shows.

Other attractions included rare and historic jets going way back in time, and kids participated and hands on science exhibits and excitedly waited for the flight demonstrations to take off.

What are you expecting to see in the show today?

The blue angels flying across the sky.

They get too close to your head.

You're gonna duck.

All right.

Got to be safe.

What are you expecting to see today?

The jets?

What are you going to see with the Jets?

How big they are.

The spectacular airshow wrapped up after the world famous US Navy Blue Angels took over the Louisiana skies and put on an unforgettable grand finale.

It's a high speed aviation show, breaking the aerodynamic barriers.

And with mind bending maneuvers, you can just say the sky's the limit.

Let's go.

Another good story, Johnny.

That looks fun.

It was.

It was a lot of fun.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LPB anytime, wherever you are with our LPB app.

And you can catch LPB news and public affairs shows, as well as other Louisiana programs that you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook and Instagram for everyone at Louisiana Public Broadcasting, I'm Christina Jensen and I'm Johnny Atkinson.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Support for Louisiana.

The state we're in is provided by Entergy.

Louisiana is strengthening our power grid throughout the state.

We're reinforcing infrastructure to prepare for stronger storms, reduce outages, and respond quicker when you do need us.

Because together we power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred B and Ruth B Ziegler Foundation and the Ziegler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is a historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and by Visit Baton Rouge and the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.