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.
Zebras, camels, ostriches, oh my! Exotic animal racing hits the Fairgrounds
Maybe horse racing is just too… normal for New Orleans.
Weekend picks: Get your eating pants back out, carnival season is in full swing
Carnival season is in full swing! Whether it’s getting your fill of sweets and king cake, or catering more to your creative side, the city has lots to offer this weekend.
All the slices of life: a list of king cake tastings to get your eat on
So, maybe you can’t try all of the king cakes the city has to offer. But you can put in a valiant effort trying.
Retail Therapy: It won’t fix #Refgate, but it might make you feel better
So, it’s been a few days since the worst no call in the NFL happened. While it still stings, we’ll recover the best way we know how: laugh at it.
What the ref?! Haydel’s cookie offers a bite of revenge
There’s no word yet on how long the cookies will last, but we hope Haydel’s keeps it up until we get over this loss. Which might not be ever.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations throughout the city
New Orleans will have a weekend of celebration with events across the city to celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The last days: Morning Call closing after seven years at City Park location
People are coming to say goodbye, getting their fix of beignets known for their signature do-it-yourself style of powdered sugar.
Local Wins: How the Who Dat Nation helped New Orleans entrepreneur NolaHatPlug gain success, quit her day job
Just two months ago, April Brooks was quitting her day job to run her small business, NolaHatPlug, full-time. Now, her hats are being sold in every Fleurty Girl store location, and sales have tripled.
Don’t cop out: you can still lose weight and eat well in New Orleans
So the holidays came, and you ate like crazy. Now we’re in the middle of king cake season, and you’re trying to figure figure out how to fit in that gown or tux for your Carnival balls.
Have your cake, and drink it, too: the history behind Lucky Player’s original king cake vodka
Lucky Player Vodka, based out of Miami, dropped the original king cake liquor as part of its original lineup when it launched in 2012.