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n honor of Mother’s Day, we recently asked a very special mother/daughter duo to share a little of their busy lives with our readers. “Busy” may be an understatement. Not only does Korie Robertson co-star with her husband, Willie, and other Robertson family members, in the weekly A&E TV hit series Duck Dynasty, she’s also a best-selling author. The Duck Commander Family, co-written with Willie, has over 300,000 copies in print, and has been on The New York Times’ Best-Seller List for 17 weeks in a row. Additionally, Korie is a sought-after public speaker, office manager of the Robertson family’s multi-million dollar Duck Commander duck call business, and mother to five well-adjusted children. John Luke is 17; Sadie is 15; Will, whom they adopted at age 5 weeks, is 11; and little Bella is 10. Foster daughter Rebecca is 24 and initially came to live with the Robertsons as an exchange student from Taiwan eight years ago. Korie’s mom, Chrys Howard, is the former Senior Editor and Creative Director for Howard Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Publishing. She has edited and co-written over 100 books and has authored nine, with over a million copies in print. Currently, Chrys is working with Robertson clan matriarch, Kay, on a new cookbook. She and her husband, John Howard, live next door to Korie and Willie in West Monroe. (Monroe natives will remember with fondness the many successful entrepreneurial endeavors of John and his father, Alton Howard, and John’s uncle, 5-time Monroe Mayor W. L. “Jack” Howard.) Chrys arrives first to the interview, which is scheduled at a local tennis court where John Luke and Sadie have matches scheduled. (With families this busy, some serious multi-tasking is required!) Having finished reading Duck Commander
Family the night before, I’m privy to all sorts of family trivia, so even with her back to me, and surrounded by kids, I realize it’s Chrys when Sadie calls out, “Hey, Two-Mama!” and accepts an affectionate hug. As a baby, John Luke christened Chrys “Two-Mama,” and all the other grandchildren (she has 11 total) have followed his lead. “Korie was pregnant with Sadie at the time,” explains Chrys, “and was having some problems, so the doctor put her to bed. Naturally, I was over there all the time helping out with John Luke. He was just beginning to talk, and he started calling both of us ‘Mama.’ We tried to give him alternative names for me, but he was insistent that we were both ‘Mama.’ One day after Sadie was born, I tried again; I pointed to Korie and said, ‘That’s Mama.’ He looked right at me and said, ‘Two Mama!’ My theory is that he had heard the grown-ups talking about having two babies now, so he concluded we had two mamas, too!” A few moments later, Korie arrives, but she’s on the phone and motions an apology. Like her mom, Korie is clad in fashionable skinny jeans, a pretty Spring blouse and sandals. Both are tall and slender, with long blonde hair and a natural, authentic beauty that seems to emanate from calm centers deep inside. Korie finishes her phone call, and we search for a quieter place to talk in the shade away from the bleachers. Ever prepared, Chrys has brought a double foldout lounge chair into which she and Korie settle. It reminds me of how they’ve faced life’s joys and challenges as mother and daughter through the years. Close. Side by side. In Willie and Korie’s case, no two people living in the same country could have been raised more differently. Yet, as Willie writes in Duck Commander Family, his mother “got a job working in the corporate offices of Howard Brothers Discount Stores in Monroe, Louisiana, which ironically, was owned by Korie’s family.
Ashley, Korie and Chrys Howard on a family ski trip.
Chrys with Korie and younger brother, Ryan, at the park
Four generations, Myrtle Durham (Chyrs’s grandmother), Korie, Chrys, Betty Shackelford (owns Shackelford-French Realty - Chrys’s mother)
Everybody in a family has their different and unique personalities, and you just have to love and appreciate them for who they are. That’s what makes a family be a family.”
~ Chrys Howard
MAY 2013 BayouLife Magazine 85