BLUFFTON, S.C. – It’s been 137 years since the Settle family has given birth to a baby girl… Carter Louise Settle changed that.
“She was born on Sunday, June 25th… 6 lbs. 14 oz…19 inches… and she’s perfect,” mother Kelen Settle said as she held her two-week old baby and first girl to be born to her husband’s last name in nearly 140 years.
“My father actually did some homework when we found out it was a girl,” Will Settle said, “He started to think back, ‘You know my father didn’t have any sisters, my grandfather may of had some sisters…’ and started to kind of move further back and found out there hasn’t been one in that long.”
In the past year, newborns have made headlines as the first girl or boy after 50 or 100 years… but the Settles set the record.
The Bluffton family had their baby sex reveal was at a Christmas party back home in Atlanta. The pink and purple balloons and pink silly string stunned the whole family.
“Everybody was expecting a boy I think,” said Will, “I definitely was.”
“We all were,” said Kelen.
Six months later, they gave birth to Carter Louise and since Will is in the billboard business, a coworker decided she needed a much bigger reveal.
“A guy I work with said you need to drive to Savannah turn around and come back,” recalled Will, “And I know that we have a good number of billboards in that area of 1-70/3-15, so I did. I went down and turned around and couldn’t believe… I couldn’t believe how bright pink the billboard was.”
A bright pink billboard that read “Welcome to the world, Carter Louise Settle”… one you certainly can’t miss driving to or from Savannah to the Lowcountry on HWY 315.
“I thought that it was it could’ve been a little bit toned down,” he said, “But that’s what billboards are supposed to be. They’re supposed to stand out, they’re supposed to grab your attention and that billboard certainly does that.”
While the Settle family is a little overwhelmed by the attention they’re getting, they hope when Carter is older and people ask her to share something interesting no one knows about her, she can say she was famous before she was even two weeks old.
