Cashier spreads good will via greeting cards, smiles

Robyn Culp wears a T-shirt featuring her signature frog art and her customized moniker: The Frog Lady. She works as a cashier at the BP on Mark Twain Avenue. Contributed photo

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Next month will mark Robyn Culp’s 16th anniversary, working as a cashier at the BP at 624 Mark Twain Avenue. She’s known by various monikers, including the station mom, the smiling lady, pet grandma, and the term of endearment that is nearest to her heart:  The frog lady.

“Frog lady” makes reference to the hand-drawn frog cartoons she has been distributing throughout the years, images that send personal well wishes to all she comes in contact with.

“People come in to get stuff,” at the BP, she said, then she unapologetically added, “and I’m the reason they keep coming back. I make a better day for them. I love people.”

Robyn recently had a health scare, which necessitated spending time at both Hannibal Regional Hospital, and Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

“One of nurses at Barnes, she got to my heart. She said, ‘This is kind of strange, you’ve had all this going on, three tubes in you, but you managed to keep smiling at people, handing these little pictures, and you’re here sick.’”

One day the nurse asked her why she wasn’t drawing. Robyn told her she ran out of paper.

“She went and got paper, so I started drawing more pictures.” 

After returning to work, she said, “Young girls came in the station and said, ‘I took care of you when your were in the hospital, and you gave me a smiling picture.’”

She makes the pictures in bulk. “I take one sheet of paper, make 16 squares, and start drawing the little pictures.

“When I draw it takes all my worries and troubles away.

“I always keep a stash of cards in my billfold to pass out.”

A police officer told her, “When I go up to a car I can’t tell how many times your smiling pictures are on the visor or the dash.”

Early inspiration

“When I was little, I loved bugs and insects,” Robyn said. “I’d go fishing in the country, and was always catching frogs.

“So I started drawing frogs.”

Other drawings feature bugs and little insects.

Frog family

She created a frog family, in line with her own family. 

The frog representing her oldest son has squarish-looking cheeks.

Her youngest son’s frog image has thick pupils, heavy big eyes.

The next to oldest son’s frog has a curled toe, like his grandmother.

And her daughter’s frog has eyelashes, but no glasses.

“Only the Momma Frog wears the glasses,” Robyn said, referring to her self image.

“There are these people in Illinois,” who always stop at the station when they are passing through town. “She always brings me paper and pencils. She always has gifts for me. Others bring in paper and pencils and stuff.”

One of her regular customers is turning 90. “Her family will bring her to the station. She will throw that door open and we will share the hugs and love. I have a card made for her.”

Other customers “will pull up and say ‘look outside.’ I have to go out and pet their dog.”

After returning to work following her hospital stay, “One little girl comes in and says, ‘I love you and missed you.’

“I’ve had people come and they look like they are down.” She gives them a big smile and a greeting card, “and they tell me I made their day. 

“I’m glad I can make somebody’s day.”

She has 10 grandsons and two granddaughters, and “eight great grandbabies. They are all fantastic. I love them all and I’m proud of them all.”

Made a mural

She worked at Walmart for 5-7 years, she said, and one day she was summoned to the office. Of course this summons made her nervous, but when she arrived, it was all good. “There were three managers there,” she said, and they asked her to make a mural in the break room with her frogs. The break room has since been redecorated, “but it was there for a long time.”

At Walmart, “I started as cashier, then different departments. I ended up being the cake decorator.”

Hannibal native

She has spent her whole life in and around Hannibal.

“I grew up on the South Side; I’d help our neighbors, rake leaves and scoop snow. Mom never had to worry about me. We lived on Valley when I was born. We moved to Grandpa Owen’s house on Terrace when he died. We moved to Saverton when I was 13; I loved it there.”

She has been drawing pictures since she was a child. “No art training, I just do it.”

Robyn Culp, cashier at the BP on Mark Twain Avenue, draws and distributes “smiles” via original cartoons featuring her signature frog art. Contributed photo