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Biotechnology Magnet Academy student DeMarcell Frierson named Gates Scholar

Biotechnology Magnet Academy at Southwood High School senior DeMarcell Frierson has been named a 2022 Gates Scholar. The Gates Scholarship is highly selective with more than 37,000 applicants this year. Frierson is one of 300 students nationwide selected to be a part of this prestigious group. Scholars receive funding for the full cost to attend college that is not already covered by other financial sources.

The Gates Scholar program is designed for outstanding minority high school seniors from low-income families and is designed to help students reach their maximum potential at college and to continue to excel as leaders throughout their lives. Each student must show academic achievement and commitment.

Frierson is the top-ranked student in his graduating class and scored a 27 on his ACT. At Southwood, he was student council president, a member of the National Honor Society and a member of the National Beta Club. Frierson also spent a semester as a BioStart Research Internship Program intern under the guidance of Dr. Yunfeng Zhao at LSU Health Shreveport, where he studied glucose metabolism and its effects on the UCP2 protein, specifically in cancer cells.

Frierson plans to study pre-med at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge with the goal of becoming a neonatologist.

Other BioStart and Biotechnology Magnet Academy student success stories include:

-Haylee Davis was also a BioStart intern. She was accepted to 10 colleges with many scholarship offers. Davis decided to attend Louisiana Tech University to be on the powerlifting team, and she will study biomedical engineering. This summer, she will work with Dr. Christopher Pattillo at LSU Health Shreveport in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology.

-Caleb Taylor was accepted into LSU’s Ogden Honors College, which is for high-achieving students. Taylor was Southwood High School’s Student of the Year and the team captain and lead programmer for the Regional Autonomous Robotics Competition. He was also co-captain and electrical and programming lead for the FIRST Robotics Competition.

-Siniya Edwards received a full scholarship to Centenary College in Shreveport. She was also offered a full-tuition scholarship to Texas A&M University, worth approximately $160,000, but is choosing to keep her talents local. She will pursue a biomedical science degree.

This year, 32 of the 36 Biotech seniors were accepted into a two-year or four-year college. Other seniors have chosen a military or alternative post-secondary experience.

BRF helped launch the Biotechnology Magnet Academy and BioStart programs in 2006 and 2009, respectively, in conjunction with the Caddo Parish School Board, LSU Health Shreveport, LSU Shreveport, participating biotech companies, and Southwood High School. The four-year academy enrolls more than 200 students, many of whom are female, minorities, and first- generation college bound.

Generous donors to BRF who have recently contributed to supporting students in STEM through these programs include: 2021 and 2022 Give for Good Donors, Community Foundation of North Louisiana – William C. Woolf Fund, Louisiana Department of Revenue, Regions Foundation, CenterPoint Energy, and the Poindexter Foundation.

National beverage manufacturer Multipack Services to host job fair for wide range of open positions.
National beverage manufacturer Multipack Services, which packages and distributes beverages for nationally recognized brands, is hosting a job fair Tuesday, Oct. 8 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at its Shreveport location.
Multipack is located at 2791 Valley View Drive in Shreveport.

Job titles for open positions include: Quality Manager, Quality Technician, Maintenance Manager, Maintenance Technician, Warehouse Manager, Warehouse Technician, Operations Supervisor, Operations Manager and Packaging Technician.

Starting wages will be $18 per hour and above. Some positions are salaried.

For more information on positions for hire, visit BRFLA.org/jobfair. Candidates should be prepared for on-site interviews.
“This job fair is an opportunity for people to join a new build and a national company at our Shreveport location in our first round of staffing. It’s not an everyday opportunity, and we’re looking for individuals who are high energy and want to start their new career,” said Justin Wilkinson, Vice President of Operations.

Louisiana Economic Development (LED), Multipack Services and regional and state economic development partners BRF, North Louisiana Economic Partnership and the Caddo Parish Industrial Development Board announced Multipack Services’ new location in December of last year.

The company expects to create 141 direct new jobs with an average annual salary of more than $51,000. LED estimated that the project would result in an additional 228 indirect jobs, for a total of 369 new jobs in the Northwest region.

“Multipack is ready to gear up its operation in its state-of-the-art facility to offer a wide range of services, including product specifications and design. The site is expected to produce more than 100 million cans of beverage products per year. We hope that the community is ready to join in on the ground floor of this operation and be a part of this scale-up,” said John George Jr., M.D., BRF President and CEO.

The job fair is sponsored by BRF, Career Adventures and Lagniappe Sourcing Consulting.