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CAFA's La. Purchase Celebration Program Participating Families & Organizations La. Purchase Highlights La. Tourism La. Sights & Attractions City of Rayne Lt. Gov. Kathleen B. Blanco	● ● ● ● ● ●	Highlights of the Bicentennial Celebration include Jefferson's America and Napoleon's France, at the New Orleans Museum of Art, April 12 through August 31, 2003. This blockbuster show will feature antiquities from Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, alongside documentation of the new lands by Lewis and Clark. Visitors will be able to view the magnificent furnishings and decorative arts designed for Bonapartes and the graceful simplicity of Jefferson's domestic surroundings. Louisiana Purchase Celebration and Reunion, a reunion for descendants of all families who inhabited the land area at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, and Exhibits by the States that comprised the Louisiana Purchase. This Celebration to be held in Rayne, Louisiana on June 13-15, 2003 at the Rayne Civic Center. The Civic Center, in addition to be being a large new facility, provides a Recreational Vehicle parking facility capable of handling over 500 R V's. This event will be directed by CAFA (Confederation of Associations of Families Acadian) and will be open to all groups of the designated area desiring to celebrate this event. Contacts for this event will be the Program Director, Mr. Eddie Richard at (337)235-0538 or Mr. Loubert Trahan at (337)893-2084 of e-mail lgtrahan@cox-internet.com. Artwork from pre-Christian, Byzantine, Roman and Gothic eras - plus Renaissance masterpieces by El Greco will make up "Heart of Spain." This rare exhibit of Spanish religious art, artifacts and icons will run September 10 to November 30, 2003 at the Alexandria Museum of Art. Josephine: Empress of the Americas will showcase memoirs, jewelry, objects d'art, rare paintings and other items of the Empress Josephine on loan from Napoleon's summer home, Malmaison. Most of these items have never been shown in the United States. The exhibit will run from September 2003 through June 2004 at the Louisiana Arts and Science Center in Baton Rouge. Sci-Port Discovery Center in Shreveport will present the exploration of the Louisiana territory with the IMAX film, Lewis and Clark - Into the Great Unknown. The film will run from September 2002 through August 2003. In Baton Rouge, a copy of Louisiana Purchase documents will be on loan from the National Archives for an exhibit at the Old State Capitol, itself a significant historic and architectural landmark.
	Other major events include a French art exhibition at the University Art Museum in Lafayette. The exhibition of French Art will showcase 200 years of French painting including masterworks from:
	● ●	Cezanne, Monet, Delacroix, Renoir, Degas, Matisse, Pissarro and Ernst loaned from the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, Rodin, Centre Pompidou and major museums throughout the United States. The New Orleans Opera Association will premier an opera, Louisiana Purchase, based on the life of Barroness Poncalba. *New Orleans had the first opera house in the United States. Operas were presented in French and in English, said Lt. Gov. Katleen Blanco.
	The grand finale to the 12-month celebration will be held December 20, 2003. The Cabildo in New Orleans will be the site of a re=enactment of the Purchase transfer from France to the United States, including the raising of the U. S. Flag. "We hope to have our President George Bush, the president of France, and the King of Spain attend this historic occasion," Lt. Gov. Blanco said. "All three countries played key roles, both in the Louisiana Purchase and in the history of the territory." The state has an official Louisiana Purchase website: www.louisianapurchase2003.com which contains information, news, history and a complete list of events and related links.