Annual Cut Off event debuts new name: Hurricane Festival

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It’s a testament to accompanying beauty pageants’ popularity that the Cut Off Youth Center’s largest annual fundraiser was renamed this year as the Hurricane Festival.

Coupled with its sports teams’ nickname of the Hurricanes, when royalty began referring to the pageants as the Hurricane Festival Pageants, youth center director D’Lynn Boudreaux thought it was natural to make the change.

Scheduled this year on Sept. 7-8, the pageants crown the festival’s queen on Saturday – dinner begins at 5:30 p.m. – and the baby king and queen on Sunday, with doors opening at 11 a.m. Admission is $5.


The pageants are popular, but they’re still a prelude to the main event. Spread across Sept. 27-29, the free-admission, free-parking festival thrusts the area’s food, music and arts before the congregated masses.

Larose-Cut Off Middle School’s band and cheerleaders, The Southern EarthTones, Voodoo Bayou, Gary T and Halifax are scheduled to perform Saturday.

“Halifax, they don’t perform a whole lot, but they’re performing for us,” Boudreaux said. “They’re like our local celebrities, you know.”


On Sunday, Blue Eyed Soul Revue is the musical entertainment. Allstar cheerleaders also perform, and the fencing club Les Lames de La Fourche gives a demonstration. Biddy basketball games are scheduled.

Also on the festival’s second day is the festival’s parade, featuring pageant queens, Boy and Girl Scouts and riders throwing beads and candy. Antique cars and motorbikes partake, as well.

Carnival ride bracelets cost $15 for four hours or $45 for the weekend.


Arts and crafts booths are set up on Saturday and Sunday, showcasing and selling jewelry items and artwork, including some by the popular painter Kent Curole.

The festival runs on the energy of volunteers, who secure sponsorships, cook meals and operate booths. Minimized expenses allow the youth center to maximize the proceeds, which totaled roughly $110,000 last year. The funds are used for insurance premiums, new equipment for youth events and repairs and maintenance to the building.

“It takes a lot to keep this place going,” Boudreaux said. The youth center is a hub for Biddy basketball, the local fencing club, a swim team and various events throughout the year, including a cracklin’ cook-off, crawfish boil, wrestling/fight nights and trivia contests.


The Cut Off Youth Center’s largest annual fundraiser, now monikered the Hurricane Festival, offers pay-one-price carnival rides, live music, arts and crafts and Cajun cuisine from Sept. 27-29 at the youth center.

COURTESY PHOTO