California Bountiful Magazine - July/August 2020

Farmer honors family roots with stage production

Story by Kevin Hecteman

Farming and theater have something in common, as Larry Starrh sees it: Both require creativity. “Dad and Mom both were very creative,” said Starrh, a third-generation farmer with a theater degree. “You have to use your imagination and do a lot of things to evolve and to be up to date.” So the farmer took his act to town. A decade ago, he helped launch an annual arts festival in Shafter, called the Colours Festival, with the goal of adding culture to the community. Then an idea sprouted. “I got this wild hair to start writing shows,” Starrh said. And so, he did. A tribute in two acts His newest play, called “The Big Secret,” grew from the loss of the family patriarch. Larry’s father, Fred Starrh, died last year at age 89, leaving behind a decades-long legacy of cotton farming and farm advocacy. The elder Starrh served as president of the Kern County Farm Bureau from 1973 to 1975 and went on to serve on the California Farm Bureau Federation board of directors, among many other leadership roles in agricultural and water organizations. It was not an easy play to write. “I was just really struggling to come up with something,” Starrh said. “I knew I wanted to do this, but trying to find that vehicle to do it was very hard.” He researched his father’s side of the family, in the process learning of an aunt he never met who died by suicide. What he discovered prompted “a serious look at how we remember people, and how legacies are carried on.”

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July/August 2020

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