Dreams are powerful.

Sheletta Brundidge — an Emmy award-winning comedian and former morning show host for KPLC-TV and disc jokey for KZWA-FM who now heads a multi-media podcasting and production company in Montana — knows that firsthand.

“When I was here in Lake Charles, God was preparing me for my future,” said Brundidge, who was the keynote speaker at Friday’s annual MLK Breakfast at L’Auberge Casino Resort. “I didn’t know I’d be able to grow my own business; being an entrepreneur was not on my bingo card. I just wanted to be a DJ and tell jokes on the radio. That’s what made me happy. I got the chance to meet Doris Day and that’s all I needed.”

But God had other plans for her, she said.

“Truth be told, I was living a nightmare” Brundidge said. “I have four children and three of them have autism. They were 5, 6 and 7 years old when I started my company and all three were still in Pampers; they’re not looking at me, they’re not talking, they can’t respond. That don’t sound like no dream. I was on food stamps. That was a nightmare. But I’ll tell you this, I had Faye’s words hidden in my heart and her spirit and determination in my soul and all of her snappy comebacks for anyone who tried to cross me.”

Faye is Faye Brown Blackwell, who founded the MLK Festival 40 years ago as owner of KZWA-FM. Blackwell was the first Black woman to own and operate a radio station in Lake Charles. She died in 2015.

“I learned everything I needed to be successful at home, right here in Lake Charles because I had Faye as my mentor,” she said.

Brundidge launched her company, ShelettaMakesMeLaugh, on Feb. 1, 2020, and said she does not take likely the sacrifices of the people who came before her — including Blackwell — who helped make that dream possible.

“It was the power of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream and his speech about his dream that changed the course of history,” she said. “There’s no way we would be sitting in here together — all these different races and religions — had he not dreamed. That’s why I dreamed and I have enough faith to believe that all things are possible for me.”

Brundidge said though she didn’t march in Washington, or cross the bridge in Selma, Ala., or protest bus companies she is “the realization of a dream.”

“Dreams are powerful,” she said. “I had a dream to start a podcast network. That was powerful. Do not give up on your dreams. The most powerful dreams are the ones that come true. The craziest dreams — the stuff nobody has ever done before — that’s the ones you go after. Dreams don’t have an age; dreams don’t have an expiration date. You can be 85 years old and have a dream. Use you power, not just to change your world but to change the entire world.”

Also at the breakfast, the annual MLK essay winners were recognized. They include Royce Guillory, a fourth-grader at Brentwood Elementary; Samira Bemsaadat, a seventh-grade student at Lake Charles Charter Academy; and Mia Carter, a senior at Iowa High School.

This year’s MLK Honorees, all members of local clergy, are Elmore Garner, Steve James, Henry Mancuso, Cathy S. Banks, Jimmy R. Stevens and Menard Jackson.