It was bad enough that she was a freshman. Because everyone always looks down on freshmen. And even her friends call her a hippy, because she’d rather read a book than watch MTV.

So when Kristi Guillory began Lafayette High School last year, there was no way she was telling people that she’d started playing Cajun accordion.

But word got out, thanks to several area-wide Cajun music TV shows. “I couldn’t hide it anymore,” says Guillory, during a conversation in her home in a Lafayette sub...