At Youngsville’s Independence Day celebration, Sarah Schoeffler, President of TreesAcadiana, announces the winner of Rodrigue’s Youngsville Heritage Oak print and the ten largest live oaks in Acadiana.

Coming full circle, TreesAcadiana returned to Youngsville to talk about trees on July 3. This time, the group came to celebrate Independence Day with the Youngsville’s community at their festival in Sugar Mill Pond, and draw the winning ticket for Rodrigue’s Youngsville Heritage Oak print. George Rodrigue painted the notorious Youngsville tree in response to efforts to save it. Tickets have been raffled for the past six months to defray costs associated with the diverted road construction necessary to let the tree remain at the historic homestead of Dr. Young, one of Youngsville’s original settlers. The winning ticket of Gina Hanchey was pulled by Hayes, the son of festival organizer Ted Beaullieu.
Schoeffler listed the trees, beginning with the tenth largest, based on their circumference measured at four to four-and-a –half feet from the base. This method is specified for qualification into the Live Oak Society, a registry founded in 1934 by Dr. Edwin Lewis Stephens, the first President of what is now the University of Louisiana – Lafayette. “As a result of saving the Youngsville oak, TreesAcadiana realized how special the live oaks are to our area, and we began looking for the ten largest oaks in Acadiana,” said Schoeffler. All of the largest trees are either registered with names in the Live Oak Society registry, or in the process of being registered as a result of the search. The trees were named as follows:

10.  The Hooper O’Day Oak – 25 feet 5 inches – located in the Saints area of Lafayette
9. The Rhett Butler Oak – 27 feet 2 inches – located off East Bayou Parkway in Lafayette
8. The Robert Earle Oak – 27 feet 10 inches – located in River Ranch of Lafayette
7. The Lady Suzan – 28 feet – located near Cecilia
6. The Robbins Oak – 28 feet 2 inches – located off East Bayou Parkway in Lafayette
5. Pete Broussard Oak – 28 feet 6 inches – located near Cecilia
4. St. John Cathedral Oak – 28 feet 10 inches – located at St. John Cathedral in Lafayette
3. La Belle Collin Oak – 30 feet – located near Grand Coteau
2. The Blanchet Oak – 31 feet 1 inch – located in east Lafayette
1. The Friendship Oak – 31 feet 7 inches – located in Scott.

The live oaks will continually change, as some trees grow and others are impacted by storms and disease. The list identifies the ten largest live oaks identified within the eight-parish region of Acadiana, which includes Acadia, Evangeline, Lafayette, Iberia, St. Landry, St. Martin and St. Mary Parishes. Schoeffler acknowledged, “We hope that others who see the list will say to themselves, ‘I have a live oak that is as large or larger than these’ and share information about it with TreesAcadiana on the internet.“
If your oak exceeds the size of the trees listed as defined by the criteria of the Live Oak Society, please contact TreesAcadiana at P.O. Box 51467, Lafayette 70505 or by a message on the group’s website at www.treesacadiana.org

The two largest oaks identified by TreesAcadiana both measured over 31 feet in circumference.
The St. John Cathedral Oak was fourth on the list of ten.