627. Kelly Jackson.

627. We interview Kelly Jackson, founder of the Cane River Film Festival. Natchitoches has a long and intimate history with American cinema. The Cane River film festival represents the latest chapter in that history. We are as diverse as the community that we represent. Our mission is to showcase, nurture, and support the emerging creative student and independent filmmakers stories about and or filmed in Louisiana. We want to share their films with an audience, seek opportunities for distribution and celebrate their achievement in telling their story that they want to tell. The Cane River film festival is not just a film festival — it's an experience.

1. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 221 years. Order your copy today!
   
2. This week in Louisiana history. May 24, 1963. Birthday of great Shreveport basket player Joe Dumars the Former NBA guard and 6-time All-Star who helped the Detroit Pistons win back-to-back NBA Championships in 1989 and 1990.
   
3. This week in New Orleans history. On May 24, 2013, City Putt, a 36-hole mini golf complex with two courses opened in City Park.  The Louisiana Course highlights cultural themes and cities from around the state. The New Orleans Course showcases streets and iconic themes from around the city, with signs detailing the city’s historic sites at each hole.
   
4. This week in Louisiana.
   El Camino Real de los Tejas
   National Historic Trail
   TX, LA
   Trail sites are located across 2,580 miles and 5 states (in the U.S.) and thousands of miles in Mexico.
   The trail runs from the city of Lafayette to the town of Natchitoches. The trail travels west from there into Texas. It splits into two trails while in the state of Louisiana, and joins again at the border with Texas.
   Website
   The Trail is administered by the NPS office located at:
   National Trails Office Regions 6, 7, & 8
   El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail
   1100 Old Santa Fe Trail
   Santa Fe, NM 87505
        During the Spanish colonial period in North America, numerous “royal roads” — or caminos reales — tied far-flung regions of the empire to Mexico City. One particular collection of indigenous trails and trade routes became known as El Camino Real de los Tejas, the primary overland route for the Spanish colonization of what is today Texas and northwestern Louisiana. The trail’s name is derived not only from its geographic extent but also from some of its original users. Spaniards referred to a prominent group of Caddo Indians as the Tejas, a word derived from the Caddo term for ‘friend’ or ‘ally.’ Thus, the Spanish province of Tejas, the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, and the historic trail traversing them owe their name to the Caddo language.
   
5. Postcards from Louisiana.