Breast Cancer Awareness Month & White Rock Granola's Origin Story

Today, October 5, is my 65th birthday. As I look back on all the twists and turns my own life has taken, I find myself thinking about the remarkable people I’ve met along the way – women and men who are out there every day fighting their own good fight, whatever that may be. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and every year it makes me think about the woman who started White Rock Granola, my friend, Renee Latour, and the remarkable series of events that brought this little granola company into our family.

It really started with cookies.

In the spring of 2020, my son Frank had a small plant-based cookie company called Frankly Good. He started it while doing a college internship at NASA in Virginia because he couldn’t find plant-based cookies he enjoyed. Then his work buddies discovered his cookies and wouldn’t stop eating them. That was when Frank realized he might have something special.

When he came back to Dallas, we started spending our weekends at farmers markets selling Frankly Good cookies (see photo). We worked hard, met some wonderful people and had an incredible amount of fun together.

Then came March 2020.

COVID was beginning to shut everything down, and we knew one particular weekend would be the last farmers market before everything closed. Frank and I weren’t even selling that day. We simply went down to support our farmers market friends and say goodbye for what we thought might be a few weeks.

We had no idea that day would change the direction of our lives.

While Frank walked around visiting his friends, I sat down with my old friend, Renee Latour, founder of White Rock Granola. I had formerly carried her granola in my store, Rooster Home & Hardware (see photo), and had gotten hooked on it. I had since sold the store but the granola was still a family favorite.

Renee and I talked for a long time. She told me that she and her husband, Mark, were ready for a change. They dreamed of retiring to Arkansas, and she was considering shutting down the granola business she had built and loved for so many years.

I also loved White Rock Granola – I loved to eat it! But as Renee talked, I couldn’t stop thinking about its potential. I saw something bigger than a farmers market business. I knew this wonderful product could be in grocery stores, hotels, restaurants and kitchens all over the country.

On the drive home, I turned to Frank and said something along the lines of, “What if we bought Renee’s granola company?”

And that was the beginning.

The next week, we went over and baked granola with Renee. Somewhere during that bake, I knew. This was what we were supposed to do.

What I didn’t fully understand at the time was that Renee was facing something far more important than selling a business.

She had recently learned that she had breast cancer.

While Frank and I were preparing to take over the company, Renee was preparing for the fight of her life.

By the time we officially launched the new White Rock Granola on November 1, 2020 (see photo), Renee and Mark had moved to their dream home in Arkansas. But instead of simply beginning the peaceful retirement they had imagined, Renee faced major surgery, months of chemotherapy and all the fear and uncertainty that accompany a cancer diagnosis.

It was a difficult season for both of our families.

Only a couple of months after taking over White Rock Granola, I lost my own mother. A year later, I lost my dad. There were days during those first couple of years when life seemed to be throwing far more at all of us than we thought we could handle.

But here’s the wonderful part of this story.

Renee made it through – and so did we.

Today, Renee and Mark live on beautiful acreage in northwest Arkansas overlooking a gorgeous vista. Deer wander onto their property every day - and their cat enjoys the view almost as much as they do. Renee has a fabulous garden and she still loves to bake. After everything she endured, there is something wonderful about picturing her there, enjoying the peaceful life she and Mark had dreamed about, with lovely flowers from her own garden on the table and something delicious baking in the oven.

And the little granola company she started is still going, too.

In fact, White Rock Granola is growing faster than it ever has.

Frank eventually traded Frankly Good for a career in software engineering. Today he’s a vice president at a major bank and teaches at a local college, something he absolutely loves. He also married Areli on Earth Day in 2024. But he never completely left the granola business. He still helps on weekends, he and Areli show up when we have those enormous jobs where every available pair of hands is needed, and, perhaps most importantly, handles a good deal of our accounting.

As for me, I’m here every day, shoulder to the grindstone, working to turn the company Renee started into a national brand.

Over the years, I’ve grown many small companies of my own, including businesses involving radio, book and article writing, decorative hardware, antiques, home construction and movie-set products. I’ve even helped with my family restaurant. But aside from Frankly Good, I had never been in the packaged food business before White Rock Granola. It's been a challenge, but I love it.

Sometimes I think about how easily our paths could have missed each other.

What if Frank hadn’t started Frankly Good? What if we hadn’t gone to the farmers market that final weekend before COVID shut everything down? What if I hadn’t sat down next to Renee that afternoon? What if she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me she was thinking about letting White Rock Granola go?

There are moments in life that seem ordinary while they’re happening and only later reveal themselves as turning points.

That afternoon was one of ours.

So during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I want to think about more than our business anniversary. I want to celebrate Renee.

I want to celebrate the woman who created something special, entrusted it to us during one of the most frightening periods of her life, fought her way through breast cancer and came out the other side.

And my heart goes out to every woman and every family whose lives have been changed by this dreaded disease, including my own sister-in-law. To those who are fighting now, to those who have survived, to those we’ve lost and to the families standing beside them, you are in our hearts.

White Rock Granola has changed enormously since that afternoon in 2020.

But no matter how big we grow, we will always remember where we came from.

It started with Renee.

And we’re awfully glad she’s still here to watch what happens next.

– Andrea 🩷