By Phil Jarratt
“Meet Larita Usa Monroe, the radiant Thai-Aussie crowned as Miss Universe Thailand Roi Et 2024 – at just 17, she’s not just ruling the waves in Noosa, Queensland, but also hearts worldwide.”
Thus gushed Instagram and TikTok posts earlier this month as the popular Noosa longboarder triumphed in the first stage of her campaign to become the first Thai Miss Universe since 1988, and only the third in the quest’s history.
“From shredding waves with her Noosa Malibu Club fam [well, until pressures of her new career intervened] to representing Roi Et Province with grace and style, she’s a true embodiment of beauty, strength, and community spirit.”
The former Sunshine Beach State High student is in fact still 16 (she’ll be 17 in August) but the bloggers got most of it right.
She certainly surfs and conducts herself with grace and style, and her community spirit is evident in her strong support of the SurfAid organisation and her surfing environment.
But how the hell did this pretty Noosa teenager end up representing the remote, land-locked and somewhat arid north-eastern Thai province of Roi Et in a 70-year-old beauty quest that some would contend is just a little out of step with modern social mores?
Sitting on the Sahara of sand that used to be First Point during a recent quick trip home to see friends and regroup after her win in Roi Et, Larita is quick to defend the Miss Universe concept and her fast-growing role in it.
She says: “Miss Universe is actually about empowering women. When you see a pretty woman you don’t necessarily think, she must be smart. The word bimbo is more likely to be used in some cases!
“But in Miss Thailand, many of the contestants are older women in their 30s with families and careers, some are athletes, some are from the armed forces. It’s definitely not just about having a pretty face. I think it’s more about being pretty on the inside, having a beautiful soul.
“And the Miss Universe Quest is more about helping others than it is about typical ideas on beauty. It’s about helping worthy causes and being a role model for healthy living.”
Born in Sydney to Bangkok-bred mum Usa (“rhymes with Noosa” says Larita) and Australian surf industry executive Ben Monroe, Larita spent her early childhood years in Sydney and visiting family in Thailand, before the family re-settled in Byron Bay when Ben joined the management team of McTavish Surfboards.
It was while living in Byron and loving life romping in the surf as an energetic Nipper, that she had to grow up very fast.
She tells the story: “For me, age doesn’t define maturity, experiences do, and I believe that I’ve had enough life experience to be mature enough to take on this quest.
“When I was 10 my five-year-old brother Luca was diagnosed with Stage 3 Wilms tumour, a rare kidney cancer that mainly affects children. He was in Brisbane Children’s Hospital for a long time, and while my parents were spending time with him, I had to learn to fend for myself. I had to get up, make my bed, make my breakfast, pack my lunch and get myself to school, then come home and repeat the process for dinner.
“During the year I was doing this I was diagnosed with osteochondritis, which affects the bone and cartilage in your knee. That meant I was on crutches for six months, so it was a really tough year.
“I learnt to accept it because around me I had my parents going through so much trauma and my little brother going through his struggle, so I just had to suck it up. And, thank goodness, Luca is doing really well now.”
The Monroe family moved to Noosa in 2020, and Larita started at Sunshine High and was soon on a longboard like most of her school mates.
“I got onto a shortboard first in Byron but Dad thought I didn’t have the aggression you need for that, so he got me onto a McTavish mid-length when I was still so tiny it felt like a longboard to me,” she said.
“When we got here and I saw all the young kids riding longboards, I knew that was what I wanted to do. In the five years I’ve been surfing I think I’ve caught up with the others a lot. In fact, one of my ambitions is to become an Olympic longboarder. In 2028 I’ll be the perfect age for my ability to peak.”
Last year the family was back in Thailand for a holiday when an aunty took one look at the statuesque teenager and blurted out, “You’re model material!”
The conversation quickly turned to Miss Universe Thailand, with the aunty and her friends saying Larita’s mixed race and culture made her “exotic”.
Larita giggles a bit when she relates this story, but things began to move very quickly.
She says: “I’ve now got a manager, a co-manager and my mum as my support team. My co-manager is a close friend of my aunty, and her daughter had entered Miss Universe Thailand previously.
“The daughter didn’t make it to the finals but my co-manager got to understand the process, so she introduced me to her daughter’s manager from that attempt, an amazing guy who’s been managing contestants for 30 years. He organised a profiling shoot and then sat around listening to my stories about surfing and then he said, “You need to get on board with this.”
But there was a stumbling block.
Larita explains: “In 2023 the minimum age for contestants was 18, so the manager said we’d have to wait for a couple of years. But then, just before they opened the Miss Universe season for 2024, they brought the age barrier down to 16. He was like, let’s go!”
But why Roi Et? Says Larita: “Roi Et is one of the biggest provinces in Thailand and it gets so hot there, so at first I was thinking Phuket or Bangkok might be better, but my managers decided Roi Et would be the best for me.
“My co-manager is from there and she is really serious about her culture and wanted me to represent it. And Roi Et does struggle economically because it’s so dry and it’s hard to farm there, even though they’re famous for their saffron rice. They also have clean water issues, so she wanted me to raise awareness of their struggle. I also wanted to enter the Thai surf comps held in Phuket, and the timing of the preliminaries in Roi Et meant that I could do both.
“But it was amazing to learn about the culture of the province, which is also very famous for Thai silk. A local lady made me an evening dress from local silk, which was just beautiful, and it was wonderful to be able to represent a product of the province.”
Thailand has 76 provinces so there is still a long road ahead for Larita to reach the finals in Bangkok, including several regional knockout rounds, dozens of runways and a program called Voices For Change, in which contestants must produce a five-minute video explaining the leading cause they support.
But Team Larita is more than confident that she can go on to be crowned the equal-youngest Miss Universe in history in Mexico City later in the year.
Larita, now a leading team rider for Josh Constable’s Creative Army Surfboards in Noosa, is also hoping she might be able to find time to slide a few waves in between campaigns.
