Mary Staes
Mary Staes is Digital Content Lead for Very Local. She works with our freelancers and crafts content for our social media platforms and website. Before Very Local, she worked with CBS affiliate WWL-TV as a web producer and weekend assignment editor for about 4 years. She has also handled broadcast coverage for 160 Marine Reserve training facilities while she served as an active duty Marine. As a native New Orleanian, she takes being "very local" to heart. She loves being intertwined with the culture and figuring out how there are less than two degrees of separation between us all, whether we're natives or not.
Weekend Picks: it’s not a holiday without a parade
Our idea of a break week is a weekend that includes a parade!
‘Ghost’: This Mardi Gras Indians’ suit, wings included, flies you to other worlds
People always make way for the Indians, but when the Black Mohawks Gang Flag Stephen Hall parted the crowd, it wasn’t only out of respect or choice that the people moved.
Beyonce gives us a remix to Maze’s ‘Before I Let Go’ to a bounce B.E.A.T.
Now DJs can readily put this track on the playlist and turn the volume all the way up at the bar or block party.
Q&A: From Algiers to Czechia – Puppets open up a window to the world
To puppeteer Karen Konnerth, they’re more than toys. They connect people to other worlds and help them learn about things they’ve never seen.
A day in Algiers Point: I wish I would’ve ventured here sooner
The homes reminded me of Uptown, but the people were so down to Earth, and you could feel the spirit of this close-knit neighborhood in every conversation.
🚗On you mark, get ready, FEST! 🏃💨
Hopefully you’ve had time to plan and prepare, because it’s only going to get crazier, and hotter, from here.
Weekend Picks: Spring has sprung! Time for fun!
Festival season has officially started, but if you’re looking for other things to do, there’s no shortage.
Q&A: How NOLA Sips’ 22-year-old owner went from second lines to her own shop location
At only 22-years-old, Stricen Carter made the decision to put her last semester at SUNO on hold to follow her dream of expanding her business, NOLA Sips. Now, she’s on tour with one of New Orleans biggest social media moguls.
What is Afrofuturism? BlerdFest aims to answer that at its first sci-fi convention in New Orleans
Were you the weird kid, the oddball, the amine or comic book stan? This one’s for you.
☔Rain, rain go away, don’t you want to fest today?🌩
The weather the past week was gorgeous! Sunny skies, a little breeze. Oh, spring was here!