NISH junior Chacelyn Peltier wears many hats, some a little shinier than others.

At New Iberia Senior High, she serves as junior class vice president, spirit committee chairman and as a member of the NISH prom board. She is also a three-year member of the NISH dance team, the Jackettes.

In addition to her service to her school, Peltier is also a member of the Greater Iberia Chamber of Commerce’s FireStarter Project, a 14-year dance student at Studio 84, the president of NISH’s 4-H club, a Scout Patrol Leader for Scouts BSA Troop 331, and the current Teen Spanish Festival Queen.

With her calendar booked solid for the foreseeable future, Peltier credits her family for allowing her to get it all done.

“I have an amazing support system,” she said. “My parents and the rest of my family are very supportive of me and have pushed me to do everything that I want to do and have never discouraged me or my dreams or ambitions.”

According to Peltier, accomplishing everything that she needs to do is all about having the right outlook on her commitments.

“You have to have a good mindset. You can’t just think of it as ‘I have so much to do’, you have to think of it as ‘I have this right now and then these things later.’ You take everything one step at a time and that’s usually how I get through it,” she said.

“I’m a big procrastinator, so having a lot of things to do means I don’t have time to procrastinate. I taught myself that if I procrastinate, I will regret it, so that helps me to keep my focus on what I’m supposed to be doing,” she added.

Her time with 4-H began when she was in fourth grade, doing cooking and fashion demonstrations. After seeing her older sister show broiler chickens, Peltier knew she wanted to compete in livestock shows as well.

Peltier won her first award for showmanship in her first competition with chickens, something that she said is all about the person behind the animal instead of how much you can spend.

“When you show livestock, the animal is being judged as well as the child,” Peltier explained. “That’s what I’ve always enjoyed. Showmanship is all on the kid, it’s not what your parents can buy.”

In addition to broiler chickens, Peltier also competes with pigs and lambs. Despite enjoying the pigs more, Peltier said she appreciates the even playing field in the broiler competition.

“My favorite animal to show is pigs, but the animal that I know the most about is definitely broilers. They call me the Chicken Lady, I’m like an encyclopedia for chickens,” she joked. “With pigs, there are so many breeds and your parents buy your animals. Not everyone has thousands of dollars to put into an animal, but broilers are all hatched from one hatchery and given to the entire state. It’s an even playing field and it’s all about your time and effort.”

Peltier competes each year in several livestock shows, including the Sugarcane Festival competition where she is able to sell her animals to recover some of the costs associated with raising them.

When she isn’t wearing her cowboy boots, Peltier is often found in hiking boots.

After her Girl Scout troop disbanded in 2020, Peltier joined her brother and father in Scouts BSA in Troop 331, an all-girls scouting troop based in New Iberia.

Since then, Peltier has risen quickly through the ranks to serve as the senior patrol leader (SPL) for her troop.

“My favorite thing about Scouts BSA is that it’s all about inclusion and having adult experiences before you become an adult,” Peltier said. “Everything in Scouts BSA is ‘scout led’, we have all the reins and they let us make all the mistakes. I plan my calendar and budget every year because that’s a job that I have as SPL.”

Peltier is currently at the Life rank in scouting and is currently working through her Eagle Scout project which is focused on continuing the beautification of downtown New Iberia.

Eagle Scout projects are for scouts who are at the Life Scout rank and they have to find a way to aid their community,” Peltier explained. “It could be building a bench or refurbishing a nature walk, but mine is the Francisco Bouligny monument. The mayor has started a push to re-beautify New Iberia and I personally think the monument is a giant eyesore among all the beauty in Bouligny Plaza. For the past three years I’ve been talking about fixing this monument.”

The monument, which was briefly beheaded for a time, was in desperate need of attention. Peltier, alongside her brother and father, spent several days cleaning, repairing and painting the monument to return it to its former glory.

Peltier’s love for New Iberia doesn’t just apply to her community service projects, either.

As the seventh Teen Spanish Festival Queen, she spends every weekend traveling around the state to tell everyone who will listen about her hometown.

“I’m a hometown girl. Some of the other pageant queens like to travel outside of their local area to compete but I’ve always felt that it is an honor to compete where I’m from and to represent my home,” she said. “The Spanish Festival represents the seven Spanish families that founded New Iberia. I didn’t understand how important that was when I first started but now it’s a personality trait, I eat, sleep and breathe the Spanish Festival.”

“A lot of people have an opinion about pageants like we’re all ‘Toddlers and Tiaras’ where I compete every weekend to get a new crown, but that’s not true. I compete one week a year and then we have an entire year to travel. Being a queen isn’t about how pretty you are, it’s about having the biggest mouth and doing the most to promote your festival.”

Peltier said that she wanted to be a festival queen since she was a little girl, getting her start at the age of 11.

“In Louisiana, you see festival queens everywhere. I wanted to be a queen so badly, I remember being five years old and begging my mom to let me do it. She asked me if I wanted to be a queen or if I just wanted a crown, so she got me a crown on bourbon street and that held me over for about five years. When I was 11, she let me do a pageant but she said we would only do one that had meaning. In 2017 I borrowed a friend’s dress that didn’t look good on me at all and competed for the Spanish Festival pageant. There were four of us and I placed fourth.”

Since then, Peltier has been the Teen Miss Iberia as well as the Junior Spanish Festival Queen.

This weekend, she will reign over the festival that she has spent all year promoting.

“I travel every single weekend,” she said of her pageant schedule. “I don’t spend time with my friends on the weekend, they have me during the school week. I spend as much time as I can traveling and promoting the Spanish Festival.”

The Spanish Festival will run from April 21-23 and will feature a parade down Main St. on Saturday.