Walteen Broussard and her favorite poster which is from the 1980 festival. Lee Ball Photography

When Walteen Broussard and her husband Ted moved into their Charenton home, a fabulously renovated barn with a long foyer, she finally had the space she always wanted to display the Sugar Cane Festival posters she’d collected over the years – with plenty of room for more.

She wasted no time putting a classified ad in the paper to get word out that she was looking for posters commemorating the festival that she grew up enjoying. “The calls started coming in, and I bought seven that year,” says the New Iberia native.

Aside from owning the decor boutique Sweet Interiors in New Iberia, Broussard is also the wife of a sugar cane farmer and says she couldn’t think of anything she’d like more to hang on the walls of her new home. “They represent my family’s livelihood, which is part of us – and I like art that means something.”

The Sugar Cane Festival’s official poster production dates back to 1978, when the first one was introduced by O. Weitzl. With ‘70s-inspired colors, the illustration of a cart loaded with cane heading towards a sun-filled sky is the one Broussard says reminds her of her younger years at the festival.

Many of the prints in the years that followed illustrated either a sugar mill or a tractor and cane cart, which prompted Broussard to group her collection by subject matter or style. She points out that, over the years, a few artists have taken creative liberties. In 1992, photographer John Daigre, now deceased, broke tradition and used a photograph of the iconic burning cane fields. Another year, Ron Olivier designed a poster that is not actually an official part of the series, but one that Broussard owns. “I like it because he took small aerial shots of 11 sugar mills and made a montage of them with sugar cane as a backdrop,” she says.

Like all collectors, Broussard has her favorites. Topping the list is Earl Hebert’s 1980 sepia-toned image of a tractor coming down a dirt road with a loaded cart. The 1989 print of the M.A. Patout & Son mill is one that took Broussard a little more time and effort to find, but she finally located it after placing another classified ad in the paper. “I wanted that one because my son was born that year,” she explains. In fact, a few of the posters have similar sentimental meaning to this collector, due to the significance of the year they were produced, correlating with the birth of her children and the year she married. A standout design for Broussard is the 2018 watercolor painted by her daughter Jena Broussard-Richardson, which is a unique botanical study of Saccharum officinarum (sugar cane). “We sold a lot of this one to the younger age group,” Broussard adds.

In all, there are 26 signed and numbered posters covering the walls of the front foyer and in other rooms of the Broussard home. There would be more if it weren’t for the fact that for 10 or so years, the posters were not printed due to a temporary decline in interest and a reorganization of the board that was “trying to get the Sugar Cane Festival back to the way it originally was.”

Broussard, who has been a board member of the Sugar Cane Festival & Fair Association for the past seven years, says she became involved in the organization specifically to chair the poster committee and resurrect the printing of the posters – which she did the year after joining. Since she took over the committee, the number of posters printed has been based on demand. “I wanted them to be an exclusive item and I didn’t want an excess left in a closet. If we had more demand, we’d print more,” she assures.

A decision was made this year to print only anniversary editions every five years, starting with the 80th Anniversary celebration in 2022. “Anniversary posters have always sold well. The 75th anniversary commemorative done by Tony Bernard sold out,” Broussard recalls.

Each original poster is donated by the artist to the Festival & Fair Association board which, in turn, auctions it at the Stars of Style gala, the Festival’s primary fundraising event. Prints have been made in four different sizes – depending on the year – one as small as 15” x 21”.

Fans of the Sugar Cane Festival can purchase past-year’s posters for $30 through the Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival & Fair Association at 337-369- 9323 or at Sweet Interiors on Main Street in New Iberia.