Church Point! Jeez, that's north of the I-10. Once you get past Opelousas, you're practically in Yankee territory. :)
Here's a guy going through some Louisiana names and their pronunciations. Skip ahead to hear him pronounce Atchafalaya the way I grew up hearing it.
Thanks for posting this.
"Laughy-ette" ...pretty much.
Man I miss good boudin.
So, he said, "This is most closely associated with the Atchafalaya basin..."
Said in that way, you don't notice the "uh" sound preceding it. I'm guessing that's what I'm remembering.
He covered Herbert as a last name, but not Richard.
Not sayin' I'm right, just that I never pronounced it that way and don't remember it commonly being pronounced that way. That was... about 35 years ago, though. The way I remember it, there was no vowel before the CH sound.