WPVI-TV(Wernersville, Pa.) — A woman in Pennsylvania has been selling Girl Scout Cookies each and every year since the Great Depression when Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, was in office and, at 98-years-old, she shows absolutely no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Ronnie Backenstoe of Wernersville, Pennsylvania, was born in 1922 and her mother allowed her to join the girl scouts when she was just 10-years-old in 1932.
She has been selling Girl Scout Cookies each and every year ever since.
Backenstoe is actually still part of a troop and her fellow scouts even joined her recently at Phoebe Berks, her retirement community in Pennsylvania, for a cookie sale.
Troop Leader Barbara Allen Perelli says Ronnie has non-stop energy. Her young fellow scouts say that she makes them all laugh.
“I think that [Girl Scouting] was just part of living and that’s what really girl scouting is. It teaches you how to live,” Backenstoe told ABC News’ Philadelphia station WPVI.
When Ronnie first started selling Girl Scout Cookies in 1932, the same year Al Capone was convicted for income tax evasion and Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a solo air crossing over the Atlantic Ocean, there were only three kinds of cookies available and each box only cost 15 cents.
For those wondering what Girl Scout Cookie is Ronnie’s favorite, it’s peanut butter.
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