A couple of years ago there was a teacher accused of having sex with students at Lake Charles Charter Academy. I have not heard any updates as to this situation.

Has this woman, Sommer Odom, been convicted yet or found innocent? Is this woman still allowed to be in the presence of children?

Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier said Sommer Nicole Odom is scheduled to stand trial on May 8.

Odom, 37, was arrested on April 21, 2015, on three counts of oral sexual battery, four counts of indecent behavior with juveniles and one count of sexual battery.

She was fired from her job a couple of days later, and a grand jury indicted her in June of that year.

Lake Charles police said Odom molested three boys — one 13 years old and two others age 14 — between Jan. 5 and April 18, 2015.

Officials said the investigation was prompted by a complaint from a victim’s mother.

The mother told police that Odom sent the boy nude photos of herself via text message and that the boy claimed Odom performed oral sex on him in a classroom.

DeRosier said Tuesday that Odom has yet to be convicted and so isn’t prohibited from being around children.

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Unit of measurement for horses handy

Could you explain the origin of measuring a horse in hands instead of feet and inches? How did this come about? There must be a reason.

The Informer addressed the question a few years ago. What it wrote:

That’s the custom. At some point in the past — exactly when is probably not knowable — merchants and others apparently agreed among themselves that the height of horses would be expressed using the hand, an ancient unit of measurement and something readily available to most people.

“Weights and measures were among the earliest tools invented by man. Primitive societies needed rudimentary measures for many tasks: constructing dwellings of an appropriate size and shape, fashioning clothing, or bartering food or raw materials,” reads an appendix to a National Institute of Standards and Technology handbook.

“Man understandably turned first to parts of the body and the natural surroundings for measuring instruments. Early Babylonian and Egyptian records and the Bible indicate that length was first measured with the forearm, hand, or finger and that time was measured by the periods of the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies.”

A hand at one time measured 3 inches, but it has equaled 4 inches since 1541, when a law enacted during King Henry VIII’s reign redefined its length.