these five personalities marked the year 2024 in Gâtine

They marked the year 2024 in Gâtine and the editorial staff NR de Parthenay was particularly touched to meet them. Here are the Top 5 of our personalities of the year, a very subjective and well-accepted choice.

The moving peasant destiny of Manon Faucher

Three weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, this young breeder from Chantecorps (Les Châteliers) took part in her first award-winning fair in Parthenay, at the very beginning of December 2024. Manon Faucher intended to become a pharmacy technician but switched to agricultural studies after having helped his dad on the farm, Jean-Yves Faucher, when he was the victim of a serious accident when he fell heavily from a silo that gave way. A very moving peasant destiny for the one who officially became head of a farm associated 50% with Jean-Yves on 1^is January 2025, at the head of the Limousin cow and sheep farm.

Maxime Le Dréan and his animal shelter

Carried by a “immoderate love for animals” in the words of his mother, Maxime Le Dréan runs an animal shelter at La Marchandière in Allonne. Resourceful, the young man can spend up to six hours a day pampering his 150 residents (goats, pigs, chickens, ponies, peacocks and even llamas, who come from private homes, associations or circuses). Only his salary, the few donations and the doors opened here and there allow him to finance this cocoon. “The more complicated it is as an animal or situation, the more I take, because I know that no one would get them back”he assured last January.

Katya Lebedev, from Hollywood to Lhoumois

She worked in 3D animated cinema in Hollywood in particular and arrived in Gâtine in the spring of 2024. From a close-up of Hollywood cinema to the first nursery plants in Lhoumois, there is ultimately only one step that Katya Lebedev took the leap by launching his nursery business in Gâtine, in the marvelous Jardins du gué de Lhoumois. This thirty-year-old Russian-American – born in Vienna (Austria) to a Russian father and a Franco-American mother – who responded to the expectations of Bernard Merlet to support him with his new collection of ivies, unique in Europe, is developing in parallel her new activity, passionate about botany and horticulture. Plant d'avenir, its small nursery company, aims to develop resilient, durable plants that consume little water. She also plans to offer workshops.

Loïc de Talhouët-Roy, transmission to the heart

What a joy it was, Sunday March 24, for the inhabitants of the canton of Thénezay to participate in a rich morning in the paths of the Parc du Porteau, property of the Talhouët-Roy family nestled between Pressigny and Aubigny. Great opportunity to follow in the footsteps of Loïc, who took over from his father Hervé, who died at the end of 2021, in the management of the Autun park and forest, the largest private massif in Deux-Sèvres where irregular management is a constant and a source of pride. Regeneration as a standard for the enthusiasts who have been shaping it for one hundred and fifty years. “Since my great-great-grandfather, the notion of transmission is increasingly strong, I think of my children, that puts pressure”assured Loïc de Talhouët-Roy at the beginning of the summer, when launching our series in the forests and woods of Gâtine. Obviously.

Jean Delêtre, the eternal child of Parthenay

Known well beyond the borders of his native Gâtine, the painter Jean Delêtre, who just celebrated his 71st birthday on December 2, was consecrated this year by the medieval city of Parthenay. On the occasion of the Jacqu'arts festival, the Parthenay museum gave him carte blanche to exhibit his works when, on September 14, 2024, Horizon linesthe third work devoted to his abundant work populated with so many imaginary characters. The public was not mistaken, coming in droves to meet him and his world of dreams. More than ten years since he had exhibited in the capital of Gâtine. “I am a big dreamer, everything is disjointed, we can play with everything in this sweet madness of dreams”, confided the eternal, deliciously mischievous child painter.