Voice of Louisiana Agriculture Radio Network Senior Farm Broadcaster Is Named King Cotton

By Tony Marks

Ville Platte Gazette

For Don Molino, serving as this year’s King Cotton is a great honor.

He said, “When you look at people who have been King Cotton in the past, I’m in pretty dadgum good company. It’s something I didn’t expect. It came out of the blue. This is great.”

He went on to say, “I’ve worked in cotton since I was a kid in northeast Texas when I picked it by hand. Now, I’m in farm broadcasting, and I cover cotton. We have a daily program just on cotton, so I’ve been involved in cotton, I guess you could say, most of my life. (Being King Cotton) is just kind of a cherry on top of the sundae, so to speak. I’m really looking forward to this. It’s going to be fun.”

Molino is a native of Paris, Texas, and graduate of Texas A&M/Commerce. He is a US Army veteran (1969-1971).
Molino started in radio while in high school (1964) and worked in Paris, Greenville, and Dallas, Texas, before moving to Jackson, Miss., as news/farm director of the Mississippi Radio Network. He moved to Baton Rouge in 1980 as operations manager of the Louisiana Network and became farm director in 1987.  In 1997, he was awarded with Southern Region Farm Broadcaster of the Year from the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Other awards include, 2006 Louisiana Farm Bureau Ag Communicator of the Year, 2017 Prestige Award, Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, 2018 National Farm Broadcaster of the Year, National Association of Farm Broadcasting, 2022 Inductee Louisiana Agriculture Hall of Distinction, and 2024 Louisiana Farm Bureau Ag Communicator of the Year.

Molino is married to Laura and has one daughter, two step-children, and three completely amazing grandsons.

For Molino, keeping harvest festivals, like the Cotton Festival, going is vitally important. As he said, “Agriculture is the number one industry in this state and has been for a long time. It’s something that we need to continue because the people coming up behind us are not that familiar with it. There’s an old saying, ‘if you ate today, thank a farmer.’ That’s so true, especially now. We thought during the pandemic people would get that, and we saw how scarce food was during the pandemic. Now, people are kinda putting it on the back burner.”

He continued, “It’s important to let young people know what life is really about. That’s what these festivals like the Cotton Festival and the Rice Festival do. They show people what agriculture and what real life is about. So, it’s important to keep things like this going.”