R.I.P. Jerelyn ‘Pixie’ Naquin
I always admired Pixie. I remember when I first met her when I was interviewing Blaine Kern in the early 1980s for a Mardi Gras story on float builders. Pixie had been with Blaine for about 20 years by that time. When I interviewed Blaine, Pixie was present, and Blaine referred to her regularly to get me this material or that file. I worked with Blaine for about 3 years at this time, and Pixie was fantastic, a real hero of Mardi Gras, and truly Blaine’s right hand woman. As his business grew in an international direction later in the 1980s, Pixie was a whiz at keeping the lid on Kern Enterprises, pacing Blaine who really needed it as he was overdoing it badly at this time. Blaine’s kids were young and weren’t part of the company yet. She kept Kern Enterprises on a steady keel as the company grew and grew.
Kern does the float building for all the Super Krewes- Bacchus, Rex, Endymion, Orpheus, Zulu. I learned from Pixie just how Blaine acquired all those top parades, and it’s a secret I’ll have to take to my grave, because Pixie only told me if I swore I would never tell a soul. As the business grew overseas, Pixie ran that for Blaine also.
Whatever Blaine got into, Pixie was there, always graceful when others were losing their heads due to the pressures of adding the overseas division at the same time maintaining good will and contracts with all the reigning Super Krewes.
Ah, secrets, the stuff Carnival is made of. Too bad it eats me up inside not knowing all of them.
Ryan,
What do you want to know?
What I mean is we could exchange a few minor secrets, and if that worked out, we could move up to slightly bigger ones, etc.