Culley Larson to be on ‘Fox & Friends’
Published 5:10 pm Friday, August 26, 2011
![0821.culley.larson.profile](https://www.albertleatribune.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2011/08/0821.culley.larson.profile.jpg)
Culley Larson, 10, wrote a letter to the editor about his bike being stolen that was printed Tuesday and soon garnered nationwide attention thanks to Yahoo and ABC. Larson will enter the fourth grade this fall. -- Tim Engstrom/Albert Lea Tribune
The 10-year-old Albert Lea boy who wrote a letter to the editor with the help of his mother about his bike being stolen is going to be on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning with Donald Trump.
The show flew Culley Larson and his parents and sister to New York on Friday, just in time to experience the approach of Hurricane Irene. The Tribune reached the family on Friday about an hour after their airplane landed. Mike, Vicki, Culley and 13-year-old daughter Haley were in a black service car hired by the show to shuttle them to the Warwick Hotel in Manhattan, across from the Museum of Modern Art and five blocks from Central Park.
Trump is a New York real estate tycoon who has made his way into show business and is on the NBC show “The Apprentice.” However, he often visits “Fox & Friends” on Mondays. The show airs on the Fox News cable channel 7 to 10 a.m. Central time, 6 to 9 a.m. Eastern.
Trump saw a segment Fox News aired about the letter and contacted the Larsons last week about giving Culley a bike on the air. While the family declined a bike, they said they would accept one for their local effort called 10 Bikes for 10 Kids, which aims to replace kids’ bikes that have been stolen.
Culley didn’t quite know who Trump was. His mother said he explained to a friend he was going to New York to meet a famous singer named “Donald Trumpet.”
On the drive, the service car driver pointed out one of Trump’s buildings and Culley began to get an idea of who he is. The family doesn’t watch much grown-up TV.
“In my house, if it’s not SpongeBob, it’s not on,” Vicki said.
Culley said the coolest thing about New York in the first hour was a homeless man who tapped on the glass of the car and the driver gave him some change. Well, that and the tall buildings.
“It’s really cool, and it is not like Albert Lea,” he said. “Lots of people honk their horns.”
He said he wants to ride in a yellow Checker cab with glass between the driver and the passenger.
The boy said he wasn’t really sure yet what he was going to say to the national TV audience but probably something along the lines of what was said in the letter.
The letter, which first appeared in the Albert Lea Tribune on Aug. 16, struck a chord with many people who had their bike stolen as a child or parents with a kid whose bike had been stolen. Culley garnered regional and national media attention last week that culminated with an appearance Aug. 19 on “Good Morning America” of him reading his letter to the editor. Many people from across the country offered to replace the bike that had been stolen from him on the night of Aug. 12.
Vicki said she is worried about Hurricane Irene. New York was slated to start evacuations Saturday with public transportation shutting down the same day.
“We come to New York for the first time, and of all things we get to experience a hurricane,” she said.
The Larsons are scheduled to fly back to Minnesota on Monday following the taping. That is, if flights aren’t delayed.
A letter from a producer of “Fox & Friends” to Vicki said the show is the highest rated morning cable newscast, with roughly 2 million viewers.
“We would certainly give Culley the opportunity to discuss his goal of getting bikes donated,” the producer wrote.