Lafayette

Cajun Field is a stadium located in the city of Lafayette, Louisiana. Nicknamed The Swamp, it is the home field of the Louisiana's Ragin' Cajuns. The... University of Louisiana at Lafayette stadium is primarily used for its American football and women's soccer athletic teams. Cajun Field boasts 2,577 chairback seats and bleacher seating to the capacity of another 28,423, giving the stadium an official seating capacity of 31,000. In planning since at least 1967 , it was built in 1970 as a replacement for McNaspy Stadium, opening on September 25, 1971 with a shutout of Santa Clara University. The stadium consists of a bowl with seating on the sidelines, with a second deck on the east sideline. One of the biggest games at the stadium was when 38,783 fans on September 14, 1996, saw the Cajuns upset 25th-ranked Texas A&M, 29-22. It was also the first victory ever for the team over a ranked opponent. The largest crowd ever at The Swamp was 41,357 fans on September 5th, 2009, when the Cajuns beat Southern University 42-19 at the 9th annual Herbert Heymann Football Classic.
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The Mall of Acadiana, originally called Acadiana Mall, is an enclosed regional shopping mall in the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, and is located at... the intersection of Johnston Street and Ambassador Caffery Parkway. It opened in 1979 and was developed by Robert B. Aikens & Associates, and is now owned by CBL & Associates Properties. Today, the Mall of Acadiana houses four department store anchors , a 460-seat food court, and over 100 smaller stores including Victoria's Secret, Chico's, Talbot's, Eddie Bauer, Nine West, Banana Republic, Hollister, American Eagle, and Coldwater Creek. The original look of the mall had an intimate, "French Quarter" type feel, with brick pavers, gas lamps, wrought iron, and no backlit signs. Although the front entrance of the mall faces Johnston Street, many people over time have found it easier to access the property via Ambassador Caffery Parkway. As a result, most mall customers consider the food court to be the front entrance.
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Rodney Begnaud is an American professional wrestler. He is best known for his stint in World Wrestling Entertainment and for his work on its Raw... brand under the ring name Rodney Mack. After training with his uncle, the Junkyard Dog, Begnaud made his professional wrestling debut in 1998 as Redd Dogg, and began competing for Southwestern independent promotions. After working on the independent circuit, Mack signed on with Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2000, making his debut as a member of Da Baldies, a faction of members who all had bald heads. After ECW's closure, Begnaud was signed by World Wrestling Entertainment to wrestle in Ohio Valley Wrestling. While in OVW, Begnaud formed a tag team with Shelton Benjamin called The Dogg Pound. Together, The Dogg Pound won their first and only Southern Tag Team Championship on July 17, 2002. Begnaud, under his Redd Dogg ring name, then made his televised WWE debut on the January 16, 2003 episode of SmackDown!. He was placed alongside John Cena in an enforcer role, replacing Bull Buchanan, who was betrayed by Cena.
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Ronald Ames Guidry , nicknamed "Louisiana Lightning" and "Gator", is a former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He played his entire 14-year... baseball career for the New York Yankees . Guidry was also the pitching coach of the New York Yankees from 2006 to 2007. Guidry was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and began his career pitching briefly in the 1975 and 1976 seasons. In 1977, he began as a relief pitcher but was moved into the starting rotation. He helped lead the New York Yankees to a World Series championship in 1977 and 1978. In those two years combined, Guidry went 4-0 in the postseason with 3 complete games in 5 starts, allowing only nine earned runs in 37⁄3 innings pitched. In 1978, Guidry posted a career year, one of the best in the modern era. Against the California Angels on June 17, he struck out a Yankee-record 18 batters. Guidry's 18-strikeout performance is usually cited as the launching pad of the Yankee Stadium tradition of fans standing and clapping for a strikeout with two strikes on the opposing batter.
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Chanda Rubin is an American tennis player. Winning seven WTA Tour singles titles, she reached her highest ranking World No. 6 on April 8, 1996,... after reaching semifinals at the 1996 Australian Open. Rubin is also former World No. 9 in doubles, winning the Australian Open in 1996 partnering with Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Throughout her long career, she has been ranked as high as No. 6 in the world even though she has been plagued by injuries. Rubin was the third African-American woman in the Open era to reach the top ten after Zina Garrison and Lori McNeil. Rubin reached the quarterfinals at the French Open in 1995, 2000, and 2003. She also reached the Australian Open semifinals in 1996, defeating Gabriela Sabatini in the fourth round and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the quarterfinals before losing to Monica Seles 6–7, 6–1, 7–5. Rubin has defeated several other top players, including Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Amélie Mauresmo, and Serena Williams. Her 2002 upset of Williams ended the top-ranked player's winning streak of 21 matches, a stretch that carried Williams through titles at the French Open and Wimbledon.
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Sarah Brice was the winner of the seventh season of ABC reality television show, The Bachelor when she was offered the "final rose" by bachelor... Charlie O'Connell on May 16, 2005. She and O'Connell broke up in the summer of 2007, but they got back together in late 2008 and are planning to wed. She is a graduate of C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, and earned a degree in nursing in 2003 from the University of Oklahoma at Norman.
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Valarie Rae Miller is an American actress. Raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Miller became interested in acting when she was quite young. She attended a... high school for the performing arts and landed a number of high-profile commercials while still in college. On summer vacation in Los Angeles, she took a course in stand-up comedy and went on to perform at such well-known clubs as The Improv and The Comedy Store. Despite offers to go on tour with her stand-up routine, Miller decided to move to Los Angeles and pursue acting. She's best known for her role as Original Cindy in Dark Angel . She hosted two game shows; one was the second season of Gladiators 2000, replacing Maria Sansone, the other was the ill-fated Peer Pressure. She also hosted One Saturday Morning on ABC. From Fall 2007 to May 2009, Miller appeared in the television drama Reaper on The CW. She also appeared in Crank and in the NCIS episode Reunion.
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Michael Doucet is a Cajun fiddler, singer and songwriter who founded the Cajun band BeauSoleil from Lafayette, Louisiana. In 2005 Doucet was one of... 12 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA award, which recognizes artistic excellence, cultural authenticity and an artist's contributions, is the highest honor in U.S. folk and traditional arts. Doucet received Grammy Awards in both 1998 and 2009 for work with Beausoleil. He was named a 2007 USA Collins Family Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists. In 2008, he released From Now On, his solo cajun fiddle album, on Smithsonian Folkways. He learned the banjo by age six, the guitar by his eighth year, and was researching Cajun music as a college student. In his youth he performed as part of a duo at a music festival in France. At the festival he was exposed to centuries-old French music, which he identified with the Cajun music of French Louisiana.
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Ronald Ames Guidry , nicknamed "Louisiana Lightning" and "Gator", is a former Major League Baseball left-handed pitcher. He played his entire 14-year... baseball career for the New York Yankees . Guidry was also the pitching coach of the New York Yankees from 2006 to 2007. Guidry was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, and began his career pitching briefly in the 1975 and 1976 seasons. In 1977, he began as a relief pitcher but was moved into the starting rotation. He helped lead the New York Yankees to a World Series championship in 1977 and 1978. In those two years combined, Guidry went 4-0 in the postseason with 3 complete games in 5 starts, allowing only nine earned runs in 37⁄3 innings pitched. In 1978, Guidry posted a career year, one of the best in the modern era. Against the California Angels on June 17, he struck out a Yankee-record 18 batters. Guidry's 18-strikeout performance is usually cited as the launching pad of the Yankee Stadium tradition of fans standing and clapping for a strikeout with two strikes on the opposing batter.
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Chanda Rubin is an American tennis player. Winning seven WTA Tour singles titles, she reached her highest ranking World No. 6 on April 8, 1996,... after reaching semifinals at the 1996 Australian Open. Rubin is also former World No. 9 in doubles, winning the Australian Open in 1996 partnering with Arantxa Sánchez Vicario. Throughout her long career, she has been ranked as high as No. 6 in the world even though she has been plagued by injuries. Rubin was the third African-American woman in the Open era to reach the top ten after Zina Garrison and Lori McNeil. Rubin reached the quarterfinals at the French Open in 1995, 2000, and 2003. She also reached the Australian Open semifinals in 1996, defeating Gabriela Sabatini in the fourth round and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the quarterfinals before losing to Monica Seles 6–7, 6–1, 7–5. Rubin has defeated several other top players, including Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Amélie Mauresmo, and Serena Williams. Her 2002 upset of Williams ended the top-ranked player's winning streak of 21 matches, a stretch that carried Williams through titles at the French Open and Wimbledon.
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Sarah Brice was the winner of the seventh season of ABC reality television show, The Bachelor when she was offered the "final rose" by bachelor... Charlie O'Connell on May 16, 2005. She and O'Connell broke up in the summer of 2007, but they got back together in late 2008 and are planning to wed. She is a graduate of C.E. Byrd High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, and earned a degree in nursing in 2003 from the University of Oklahoma at Norman.
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Johnathan Mark LeRoux is an American cartoonist and former professional wrestler. He is best known by his ring name Lash LeRoux, a take off of Cajun... western movie star Lash La Rue, and for his time in World Championship Wrestling, where he was a one time World Tag Team Champion with Lieutenant Loco. LeRoux attended Oxford High School, where he was a junior high state finalist in amateur wrestling in two successive years. In his junior year he came third in the varsity state tournament. LeRoux also played football for the Oxford High Yellow Jackets, and in 1993 his team won the Alabama State Football Championship. After graduating from high school, LeRoux attended Jacksonville State University, studying towards a pre-med degree. He later decided to take a year out in order to focus on his burgeoning career as a cartoonist. In 1997 LeRoux saw an advertisement for the WCW Power Plant on an episode of WCW Monday Nitro.
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Valarie Rae Miller is an American actress. Raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Miller became interested in acting when she was quite young. She attended a... high school for the performing arts and landed a number of high-profile commercials while still in college. On summer vacation in Los Angeles, she took a course in stand-up comedy and went on to perform at such well-known clubs as The Improv and The Comedy Store. Despite offers to go on tour with her stand-up routine, Miller decided to move to Los Angeles and pursue acting. She's best known for her role as Original Cindy in Dark Angel . She hosted two game shows; one was the second season of Gladiators 2000, replacing Maria Sansone, the other was the ill-fated Peer Pressure. She also hosted One Saturday Morning on ABC. From Fall 2007 to May 2009, Miller appeared in the television drama Reaper on The CW. She also appeared in Crank and in the NCIS episode Reunion.
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Darrel Guilbeau is an American voice actor. He was recommend by friends to audition for Overman King Gainer and won the lead role of Gainer Sanga.... Other notable roles include Hikari in The Melody of Oblivion and Sousuke Kawara in Samurai Champloo as well as Paranoia Agent, Stellvia, Koi Kaze, DearS, Rumiko Takahashi Anthology, Boys Be, Captain Herlock, Cyborg 009, Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG, Kamichu!, Buso Renkin and the Pilot of Pretty Cure. He had multiple voices in the video games Radiata Stories, Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song and the main character in an upcoming version of Culdcept. On film his voice can be heard in Red Water starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Bam Bam and Celeste with Margaret Cho and the hit Korean comedy Attack the Gas Station. As an actor he has appeared on the film Windtalkers directed by John Woo and on television shows such as Alias and The Comeback.
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