Cheri’ Ben-Iesau: Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer, Artist and Entrepreneur

Join me this week as I speak to the first African American female Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer, Cheri' Ben-Iesau, from BIG BRANCH APIARY - her blueberry farm on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, LA. 

After duty stations in San Diego, Louisville, Baton Rouge, Houston, and New Orleans she retired, nearly 25 years later and wrote the book, The Long September, which chronicles her experience inside City Hall as a first responder during Hurricane Katrina.   

Now Cheri' is applying her talents and passions to run a U-Pick farm complete with honey, eggs, chickens, flowers and blueberries along the Tammany Trace bike trail.  

Cheri' is also a renowned artist whose artwork has been in the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, numerous gallery exhibits, and her work is routinely featured at Ariodante Gallery in New Orleans.