TRENT ANGERS, nominated twice for the Nobel Prize in Literature (2000 and 2001), is a veteran journalist who has authored countless published news and feature stories, as well as six books, in a writing and editing career that has spanned five decades.

 

    His better-known books are The Forgotten Hero of My Lai: The Hugh Thompson Story (1999 and 2014); Grand Coteau: The Holy Land of South Louisiana (2004); An Airboat on the Streets of New Orleans (2008) and The Truth About the Cajuns (1989).

 

    His news and feature stories have appeared in a wide variety of publications, both national and regional, including Reader’s Digest, the New York Post, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Acadiana Profile Magazine.

 

    His nomination for the Nobel Prize in Literature was based on his writings about Hugh Thompson, the U.S. Army helicopter pilot who is credited with stopping the infamous My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. Angers’ work on this subject was also accepted for consideration in the competition for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism. The articles submitted to the Pulitzer Board showed that President Nixon initiated an effort to sabotage the My Lai Massacre trials so that no U.S. soldier would be convicted of a war crime. This revelation represents a new piece of American history that, if known at the time, could have led to Nixon’s impeachment.

 

     Angers apparently was destined to be a print media journalist; he was “born with printer’s ink in the blood,” as the saying goes. He is a second-generation journalist, having grown up in the newspaper business. He worked for the Franklin, Louisiana, Banner-Tribune, which was owned and operated by his father, the late Robert J. Angers Jr. He began at age 10 as a carrier boy, then learned photography, then began writing for the newspaper while still in high school.

 

    He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Louisiana State University in 1970 and was named the Outstanding Graduating Senior in Journalism by Sigma Delta Chi, a professional journalism organization. He also won the Hodding Carter Award for Responsible Journalism. He served an apprenticeship at The Palm Beach (Florida) Post. In the early 1970s he was a staff correspondent for The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and The Beaumont Enterprise.

 

    For 36 years (1975-2010), Angers was editor and publisher of Acadiana Profile, “The Magazine of the Cajun Country,” based in Lafayette, La.; it is one of the longest-running regional publications in the United States.

 

    A member of the Secular Franciscan Order (the Third Order of St. Francis), he resides in Lafayette, La., with his wife, Cindi, a teacher in the public school system.