Thoughts, prayers and remembrances are continuing to pour in after the unexpected passing on Friday morning, January 17, of beloved Austin radio personality Larry Monroe.
A founding patriarch of Dripping Springs' KDRP and a legendary on-air personality at KUT Austin for nearly 30 years, Monroe touched the lives of countless music listeners in Central Texas. Fans of Monroe expressed their grief and love on social media outlets for KDRP.
In its official statement about Monroe’s passing, KDRP described him as “a pillar of both the Austin and music worlds — a renowned on-air personality, a musician’s advocate, and a dear friend to all of us here at KDRP.” In a later update, KDRP reported that Monroe was transported to the hospital with respiratory complications, passing away shortly after his arrival.
In another update, KDRP founder Daryl O’Neal told KUT News that Monroe died from complications due to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). A private funeral service for Monroe will be held in his hometown of Hartford, Indiana, within the next few weeks, and a public memorial will be held in Austin.
Monroe was a popular fixture on KUT, with his Blue Monday, Phil Music, Texas Radio and Segue City shows featuring roots music, blues and jazz, but he would split from the station and move to the nonprofit KDRP station in 2011. Even with the move, Monroe still had plenty of listeners as he spun records and expressed his love for Texas music.
Even the town of Luckenbach is in mourning, stating that Monroe will be remembered at the upcoming Luckenbach Blues Fest.
This yrs Blues Fest is officially dedicated to Larry Monroe. 30 yrs of Blues Radio for ATX. We will miss him! @KDRPlive
Few people are strong enough to resist the lure of Girl Scout cookie season every year, with the cookies’ limited availability and unique flavors a strong incentive to indulge. But only the girls and their families who have sold the cookies know the joys and stresses of trying to get people to buy them, a process that is detailed in the new documentary, Cookie Queens.
The film by documentarian Alysa Nahmias uses the stories of four different girls to represent the nationwide ritual for the Girl Scouts. They include 12-year-old Olive in Charlotte, North Carolina, a longtime top seller; 8-year-old Shannon Elizabeth in El Paso, Texas, who wants to earn the reward of going to camp; 5-year-old Ara in San Diego, California, whose goal is modest compared to most other girls; and 9-year-old Nikki in Chino, California, who has to compete with her older sisters in the cookie-selling bonanza.
The girls represent a cross-section of both ages and backgrounds, with some girls coming from wealthy families and some girls dealing with more limited means. And how much money your family has makes a big difference, as not only does someone richer have more freedom with their time and supplies, but all scouts are required to reimburse the organization for every box they take in, regardless of whether they’re able to sell it or not.
That caveat makes the journeys of the four featured girls feel wildly different. It’s clear from the start that Olive and Nikki’s families don’t give a second thought to the personal economics of selling cookies, with each girl taking in thousands of boxes at the beginning of the six-week selling season. With both Olive and Nikki rightfully confident that they’ll have no problem offloading their supply, their stories turn to how selling is personally affecting them, with each trying to reconcile the fun of doing it with the pressure they feel from their family members.
Shannon Elizabeth’s story is more harrowing, as her parents feel a strong desire to help her accomplish her lofty goal, but worry that the cost might literally be too high for the family as a whole. More than once, the parents are shown fretting that they won’t have the money to pay back what they owe should they fall significantly short in their sales. Their selling approach, which includes walking through an empty swap meet and standing outside a chain restaurant at night, only adds to their stress.
The most fun story to watch is that of Ara, whose innocence is matched by her confidence. Her parents teach her how much money they’ll owe with her small goal of 55 boxes, but right away she takes on more responsibility than expected. She’s shown making sales pitches and tallying the total number of boxes she’s sold with little to no help from either her mom or dad. With her high voice, glasses, and a monitor on her arm to manage her diabetes, she becomes the cute and sympathetic part of the film.
There are times that the film starts to feel more than a little manipulative, however. While many of the moments documented come off as organic, some of them seem like Nahmias is actively guiding the participants in order to get a better story. This is especially evident with Shannon Elizabeth and her family, whose early struggles turn into a miraculous feel-good story by the end, a turnaround that seems implausible at best. Everything with them might have been aboveboard, but Nahmias and her team edit the family’s journey in a way that pushes a bit too hard for emotion.
Cookie Queens, which was produced by a company owned by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, helps to give insight into the business of selling Girl Scout cookies for those who’ve only been on the purchasing end of the transaction. The dedication of each girl toward selling their allotted supply proves fun and interesting, even if the filmmaker tries to gild the lily on occasion.
