ANNA MONICA

PHOTO: PEN PALS Cynthia Kirk of West Virginia and Bethany Crotty of Houston began their relationship as pen pals through a teen magazine and finally met each other in person 14 years later. (Photo by Anna Monica) When she was in the fourth grade and about 10 years old, Bethany Crotty decided she wanted to have a pen pal. Then, there was a teen magazine called “Bop” and a girl named Jamie had put her name in for a pen pal, too. But, Jamie had too many pals by the time Crotty wrote to her so she gave Crotty’s name to her friend, Cynthia Kirk. Fourteen years later, Kirk, of West Virginia, and Crotty are still writing to each other. But now, the girls have grown into young women, college educated and are holding responsible jobs. Kirk still lives and works in West Virginia while Crotty, a Garyville native and daughter of the late Duane Crotty and Donna Terrio, has relocated to Houston. Finally they have met and when Kirk stepped off the plane in Houston last month and saw Crotty in person for the first time, she was nearly beyond excitement, almost unable to believe it was finally happening. “It was so different because I was used to just picking up the phone and start gabbing with her,” she says. They really did know each other well, in so many ways, though, having shared an abundance of pictures, information, secrets and confidences throughout their growing up years. What finally made it possible for these two long-time pen pals to meet? Well, at Christmas time Kirk sent Crotty a book about friendship, with places in it to write about special memories they had shared. Realizing it couldn’t be done because they had not met, Kirk made that important phone call to Crotty. “Tons of times we tried to get together to meet but something always came up,” says Crotty. From the time the two friends met in person at the Houston airport, there was constant activity. First, they went out with a group of Crotty’s friends, who were also excited because they knew about the relationship, and they also took Kirk to her first rodeo. There was a quick trip to Garyville where Donna had her home lavishly decorated for Mardi Gras and served a typical Cajun meal of red beans and rice, but only after the girls had seen a parade the night before. Kirk, though, had been accustomed to receiving Louisiana foods from Crotty, like Zatarain’s jambalaya mix and Zap’s, and in turn was sending things like pepperoni to Crotty. The group gathering in the Terrio home for that visit, included Crotty’s best friend from school, Marci Clement of Reserve, and Theresa and Sandra who drove down with them from Houston. Coming home wasn’t anything new for Crotty because she often makes the trip for the LSU home games and to be with family, the same family who felt that they, too, had known Kirk for a long time. As the Houston group was preparing to go back, Crotty and Kirk seemed to know that during this visit they had finally made enough real memories to fill a book They were committed to continuing this friendship that had begun a long time ago, with the stroke of a pen.