Steve Humphries, 58, Vice President of Santa-America’s Military Support Programs and Chief of the Casualty Assistance Center at Fort Polk, dons Army fatigues at Christmas parties and greets the children and spouses of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan with a hardy, “Heaux, heaux, heaux.”
He is so dedicated to his job that two years ago, when a 10-year-old girl sat on his lap and told him that her sister died and her mother had not been able to sleep since, he connected the parent to area social work services. He has also learned some Arabic sayings so that he can chat with the children of linguists at Fort Polk.
And when he is not making spontaneous trips to department stores to jokingly take inventory of merchandise in the toy aisles, he is riding sleighs that include a 1923 Hot Rod with a snow-blowing exhaust and a “Bayou Sled,” an Argo six-wheeler for “driving through the swamps” (see below). He boasts: “Duck Dynasty has nothing compared to Santa when traveling in Louisiana!”
