"DID YOU GO TO HAWAII? YOUR TAX DOLLARS DID!"
by Matt Scallan - Times-Picayune (excerpt)

Carolyn Schexnaydre's long-shot election campaign to the St. Charles Parish Division A seat began with a hand-lettered sign in her front yard: "Did you go to Hawaii? Your tax dollars did!"

Her outrage over the parish government's decision to send more than two dozen employees to the 2005 National Association of Counties convention in Honolulu, significantly more than in previous years, caused her to focus on what she believes are excesses and insensitivity by the parish government.

"I saw that people coming up to the microphone at the council meetings weren't treated with respect," she said. "I realized that we didn't hear about things that were going on in our community until it was too late to do anything about it."

Schexnaydre, 54, a Destrehan homemaker who holds leadership posts in the American Legion Auxiliary, defeated two-term councilwoman April Black in the parishwide election by 618 votes, or 54 percent of the vote in the low-turnout election.

Her election means that the nine-member council will have all new faces when it takes office in January.