NEWS RELEASE

JEFFERSON PARISH, LOUISIANA

February 7, 2024
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

History Talk!
“Who Lived on Your Street in 1492?”

METAIRIE, LA – Vince Liberto, a life-long resident of Jefferson Parish, will give a presentation titled “Who Lived on Your Street in 1492: The Ancient and Indigenous Peoples between Veterans Highway and W Esplanade,” at 7 p.m., Wednesday, May 22, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

Liberto says he has always been fascinated by his neighborhood in Metairie and by the indigenous folk and others who have inhabited the area between Veterans Highway and Lake Pontchartrain for more than 2,000 years.

“We tend to think of the ancients as Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans,” he said, “but did you know that at the same time as pyramids and sphinxes were going up in Giza, mounds of clams were being built for religious and ceremonial purposes on places we now refer to as Bonnabel, Causeway and Clearview?”

In this presentation, Liberto attempts to uncover the fascinating dwellers who lived and worked in these neighborhood, “men and women who perhaps walked down your very own street, or indigenous folk who may have well dwelled in the same spot as your very home.”

For 18 years he served as an award-winning parish consultant for J.S. Paluch Co., a Chicago-based business that has served the Catholic Church in America since 1913. Several of those years he placed first in the company’s annual year-long, nationwide sales contest. He now works for Diocesan Publications as a Parish Relationship Manager. He has served as a fundraiser for the Sisters Servants of Mary and the Jesuits of the New Orleans Province, a service coordinator for the Parish Social Ministry Office of Catholic Charities-Archdiocese of New Orleans, and the founding Coordinator of Young Adult Ministry for the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Cenacle Retreat House.

A longtime lecturer and catechist, he is a past Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus and past president of the Serra Club of New Orleans. He also served as president of Carrollton Rotary. He holds Bachelor of Art degree in history and philosophy from St. Louis University in St. Louis, and a master of arts degree in Theological Studies from Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.

For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.

The Jefferson Parish Library system consists of 16 locations that stretch from the Lakeshore Branch on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain to the Grand Isle Branch just steps away from the Gulf of Mexico. The library system consists of two large regional libraries and seven branches on each side of the Mississippi River. The East Bank Regional Library serves as library headquarters. More than 200 employees work for the Jefferson Parish Library including librarians, administration and support staff. For more information, contact the library at (504) 838-1100 or www.jefferson.lib.la.us.

For more information about Jefferson Parish, visit www.JeffParish.net. Residents can also receive regular updates by following the Parish on social media (@JeffParishGov) or by texting JPALERT or JPNOTICIAS to 888-777.

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Jefferson Parish Public Information Office 1221 Elmwood Park Boulevard, Suite 1002 Jefferson, LA 70123

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Gretchen Hirt Gendron, PIO