90th Little Italy Italian Festival
Sunday October 1st, 11 AM - 3:30 PM - Location: 33223 AR-300, Roland, AR The 90th Annual Italian Festival combines food, fun, and games for all ages. The event began in 1927 as the Little Italy Grape Festival and continues today as a celebration of Little Italy's Italian heritage. A traditional Spaghetti dinner with specialty Italian Sausage is ser...
When Will New Orleans Apologize for the Italian Lynchings?
The popular trend of taking down Confederate statues and the resulting controversy and violence was put on steroids by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. And now this tactic has predictably attracted mentally-disturbed white supremacists, Neo-Nazis, Antifa anarchists, and outright communists. However, Mayor Landrieu's virtue signaling only goes so f...
2018 ICCC Board Nominations Sought
The Italian Cultural and Community Center is seeking candidates to fill five upcoming vacancies on the Board of Directors. The election will be held at the annual meeting of members on December 7, 2017. Each term lasts three years. We welcome strategic thinkers who understand “the big picture” and who can translate ideas into actions in order to fu...
Christopher Columbus statue vandalized in Houston's Bell Park
Houston police say someone vandalized the Christopher Columbus statue in Bell Park overnight. Police were called to the scene between 12 a.m. and 2 a.m. Friday at Bell Park in the 4800 block of Montrose. It appeared someone dumped red paint on the statue. According to a plaque, the Italian-American Organizations of Greater Houston donated the statu...
119th Grape Festival celebrates Tontitown history
A title character plays only a supporting role this week at the Tontitown Grape Festival. That's the grape itself, now relegated to cameo appearances at this venerable yearly celebration, whose roots date to 1899. It's the case that not a lot of grapes are grown today around this Northwest Arkansas community, settled near the end of the 19th centur...
Spaghetti And Chicken Tradition
When the first settlers from Sunnyside sat down to a harvest picnic in 1898, the thought of a Ferris wheel or carousel in eyeshot of the church house doors would have been inconceivable. Just as hard to fathom, though, would be the idea that the supper would become a tradition that would span a century and more. This coming week, the 119th Annual T...
Volunteers Prepare For 119th Tontitown Grape Festival
With three weeks to spare, volunteers are starting to prepare the homemade pasta for the 119th annual Tontitown Grape Festival. Volunteer Jettie Franco said participating in the festival is a way to share a piece of her Italian heritage with her family and the community. "I think that's what happens in a lot of nationalities, they don't pass down t...
Who killed New Orleans' police chief 100 years ago?
In October 1890, David Hennessy, the chief of police in New Orleans, was ambushed outside his home. He was shot multiple times and died the following day. Several Italian men were put on trial, but a jury failed to convict them. Angry residents sought revenge, storming the old Parish Prison and killing 11 people, hanging two of them and shooting th...
Opera sings with a pat of Puccini, a beauty, a beast
Texas in summer means hot days at the lake grilling. It usually doesn't mean opera. But beginning 7:30 p.m. July 18, students of Red River Lyric Opera will perform four operas in Midwestern State University's Fain Fine Arts Center Theatre. The three-week summer intensive workshop brings opera singers from across the country to study with voice teac...
This original piece of Italian culture is found in City Park!
Nola Gondola, founded by Robert Dula, will wrap you up with the magic and allure of the Venetian Gondola, and mix it with the romance and flavor of New Orleans. Robert’s childhood dream of being a Gondolier was realized in 2003 when work on his authentic Venetian Gondola began in Venice, Italy. "I'm not Italian," said Dula, who goes by Roberto on t...
Congressman who rose to powerful job still rooted back home
When he campaigned for his leadership job, Rep. Steve Scalise embraced two things he loved, baseball and his home state of Louisiana, handing out commemorative baseball bats and serving up a Cajun dinner with oysters and gumbo. The House's third-ranking Republican is known as much for that sort of joie-de-vivre, a backslapping, hearty embrace of t...
Genius of Leonardo da Vinci on display
Leonardo da Vinci was a genius, a virtuoso and a visionary. His studies, inventions and works of art created during his life from 1452 to 1519 make him the consummate Renaissance man. He drew early concepts for the car, bicycle, helicopter, glider, parachute and much more, but his legacy is best seen today in such works as the “Mona Lisa,” “The Vit...