BEAUMONT, Texas — Edward Poullard of Beaumont, a third-generation Creole musician and master accordion builder, will receive the nation's highest honor in folk and traditional arts Wednesday when the National Endowment for the Arts presents its 2025 National Heritage Fellowships in Washington, D.C.

The National Endowment for the Arts will honor Poullard and six other recipients at a ceremony beginning at 4:30 p.m. CT at the Library of Congress, according to the agency. The event will be livestreamed at arts.gov/heritage and available on demand afterward.

Poullard, born in Eunice, Louisiana, in 1952, grew up in a French-speaking family where he learned music from his father, a sharecropper and performer of "la la," a precursor to Zydeco. The family moved to Texas when Poullard was young,

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