Members of the Gonzales Jambalaya Association meet President Jimmy Carter in June of 1978
Looking back: 91-year-old St. Amant woman on meeting President Jimmy Carter
The year was 1978. The LSU Tigers had finished the previous season at 8-4, losing to Stanford by 14 points in the Sun Bowl. The New Orleans Saints finished the year at a lowly 3-11 under then Head Coach Hank Stram.
Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards was in the midst of his second of four nonconsecutive terms and the City of Gonzales was promoting itself as the “Jambalaya Capitol of the World,” and as such, had secured an invitation to serve their signature dish to the most powerful man in the world at that time — President Jimmy Carter.
After multiple days of memorials and funerary processions across Georgia and beyond, America’s 39th President is currently lying in state inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. At 100 years old, Jimmy Carter was the oldest living former U.S. President and the first to reach 100.
His legacy includes historic foreign policy initiatives, such as the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt and securing Panama control of the Panama Canal from the U.S., along with a tireless commitment to human rights — ultimately providing housing for more than 13 million people around the world through his work with Habitat for Humanity.
As part of looking back on President Carter’s relentless spirit and humanitarianism, UWK spoke with the children and grandchildren of multiple Ascension Parish residents who met President Carter on a warm June afternoon in 1978, serving him Jambalaya and listening to jazz music on the South Lawn of the White House.
The Gonzales Jambalaya Festival first began in 1967. Steve Juneau conceived it as a way to promote the City of Gonzales. While Juneau was originally from Avoyelles, he was impressed by the Jambalaya prepared by cooks across Ascension Parish and presented the idea to the Gonzales Lions Club.
The festival has been going on for over 50 years and draws crowds of well over 40,000 visitors annually. In 1978, however, it was a relatively small affair when then-association president M. Paul LeBlanc worked with area politicians to receive a coveted invitation to the White House to serve the President.
The event, covered by the New York Times and Washington Post, took place on June 18th and was marked as a 25th anniversary celebration of the New Port Jazz Festival with a catered Jambalaya buffet, “prepared on the grounds by award-winning cooks of the Jambalaya Festival Association of Gonzales, La,” as stated in the New York Times.
President Carter meeting members of the Gonzales Jambalaya Festival Association.
Besides lunch, the Carters were joined by jazz luminaries from around the country, including Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, George Benson, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach, among others.
As the audience was gathering prior to the official concert, the Young Tuxedo Brass Band from New Orleans paraded and played New Orleans street marches for the President and First Lady, ultimately dedicating the tune, “Baby Face,” to the President “because of his wonderful smile.”
Meeting President Jimmy Carter and the First Lady
Mary Ann Keller, 91, still lives in Ascension Parish and is one of very few remaining people from the Association who attended the luncheon and concert. She remembers being a bundle of nerves when she met President Jimmy Carter and the First Lady but said their grace and kindness eased everyone in the room.
“I remember somebody had to go inside and use the bathroom. And of course, a bunch of women together, we all said, ‘We’ll walk with you.’ So we went towards the kitchen,” Keller said.
Inside the kitchen, the women met White House cook John Ficklin, who worked in the kitchens at the White House between 1941 to 1990, serving nine presidents, starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Keller said Ficklin was a popular last name around Ascension Parish around that time and so she was immediately curious if he had family from Louisiana.
“He (Ficklin) was showing us around the kitchen. Around that time, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn came walking in. They had been playing tennis and we were all scared, like, ‘Oh my god, we’re here in the kitchen and here’s the president and his wife’,” Keller said. “Well, both of them spoke and said ‘Oh no, that’s okay. We’re glad to see y’all’ and he started introducing himself. They were very sweet people. Him and her both came walking up and talking to us and associating with us like we were old friends or something.”
Keller said while she was immediately astonished by the president’s down to earth manner, she figured that Plains, Georgia and Gonzales, Louisiana were probably not very different places and felt right at home in the president’s company from that point on.
The association spent around seven hours on the South Lawn of the White House that day, serving several pots of Jambalaya to the President, First Lady, the President’s staff, White House employees, and the musicians. She said the men who cooked the jambalaya from the Association had to show up at the White House even earlier than she did so Secret Service could inspect the pots, burners, and especially the ingredients that would be used.
Mary Ann Keller (left), President Carter, and Nora Lee Rica on the White House South Lawn in 1978.
“They were just very sweet people. While we were cooking, they would come by and come look at what we were doing and talk to us, just very, very sweet people,” Keller said.
Russ C. Ricca’s mother, Nora Lee Ricca, was the first, and to this day, only female president of the Association. Ricca’s mother passed away more than 40 years ago, not too long after the event at the White House.
“The only thing I really remember is she mentioned that he (Carter) did kiss her on the cheek. I know they cooked on the South Lawn and stuff like that,” Ricca said
To this day, the the Association honors one member each year with the Nora Lee Ricca Award.
“She was very dedicated to the Association and the Jambalaya Festival. She put all of her heart into it,” Ricca said about his mother.
No Peanuts in Jambalaya
Gary Lessard’s father, Authur “Fatty” Lessard was a Jambalaya champion in both 1972 and 1976 and says his father was one of the men who cooked for the president on that day. Like President Jimmy Carter, Lessard’s father was also a farmer — growing vegetables and raising cattle in Ascension Parish. He said the president and his father quickly bonded over that.
“My daddy was a farmer, just like President Carter. They had a lot in common and they talked about things of that nature — the old times, how you farmed and how you fed your family and how you made a living,” Lessard explained.
Lessard said his father was also a community man and dedicated thousands of hours of his life to cooking benefits for churches, non-profits, and charitable efforts across Ascension Parish and beyond and thus always felt a connection to President Carter because of their similar humanitarian efforts.
“It was tough. Daddy didn’t always get rich on cooking, even though my daddy could have opened up a restaurant and made millions but daddy didn’t do that. He wanted to do it because he liked to help people and meet people by cooking. I can’t tell you how many different organizations daddy cooked for,” Lessard said about his father.
“Fatty” was also given the honorary title of Colonel by Gov. Edwin Edwards later in life.
Robin Gauthe says one family story about her grandfather, “Fatty,” meeting the President involves peanuts.
“I remember him talking about Jimmy Carter and loving Jimmy Carter,” Gauthe said. “I believe he spent about an hour with the President and my uncle said that the President asked my father, ‘What do you not put in jambalaya’? And my grandfather said ‘peanuts.’ And so they bonded over both being farmers and coming from farming families.”
