Our Laurel Wordsmiths

Written By: William McReynolds | Issue: Winter 2025

Some highly skilled writers live here on our Plateau and some of those write regularly for our Laurel magazine. Their words, like the rest of 2024, have flown by like a skein of migrating geese. Looking back, I have caught some fly-by glimpses of their most exalted penmanship to celebrate and share.

There are more praiseworthy Laurel contributors than my 400-word limit will allow. The Staff Writers are Luke Osteen, Mary Jane McCall, Marlene Osteen and Donna Rhodes. Contributing Writers include Stuart Ferguson, Debbie Hall, Ed and Cindy Boos, and Deena Bauknight. There is also a score of talented Guest Writers. I have space to catch overhead glimpses of just a few.

No one writes more for each issue than our endearing editor, Luke Osteen. His facile way with words sometimes gives flight to his soaring literary soul. In March of 2024, Luke brought Shakespeare to the 3rd Annual Highlands Dog Show quoting the Prince of Denmark that “Every dog has his day.” In so doing, Luke said, the Bard “cast his gaze forward 400 years to Highlands.” Hello Will. Hello Hamlet. We got dogs here.

Enamored of the pork belly bites at the High Dive in Highlands, Luke enthused in the March issue that if Aristotle had offered them at the Lyceum in Athens “the savories could have altered the course of Western Civilization.” Wow, some endorsement! He also shared with readers his Uncle Fred “who could charm the birds right out of the trees” and told of their first fishing trip that was so disastrous to boat, tackle and tackle box that Uncle Fred was prompted to say, “that means for the rest of your life you’ll have incredible luck.”

Marleen Osteen takes us to vineyards in Europe and to delicious sipping and supping here on the Plateau. Her discerning palate relishes a fine wine as in “a round, relatively full-bodied, rather fruity white with a crisp mineral note lovely in its streamlined purity.” She soared highest this last year in the Winter issue when she characterized Old Edwards Discovery Gin: “the subtle minty freshness of sweet birch bark with gentle resinous notes of native hemlock, the earthiness of Pitch Pine, balanced by the piney essence of local juniper and caressed by the sweet touch of sourwood honey.” What a beguiling description!

Donna Rhodes writes engaging columns that are impish and magical, mischievous and insightful. This last year she invented the Goose Bump Meter and introduced us to her poetry writing, rub-my-belly cat Tickety-Boo, opined about an “undiscovered gland in human bodies that regulates laughing,” and brought Yogi Berra to the party with such Yogi-ism as “It gets later early out there.”

I’m well over my allotted word count. Mary Jane McCall gives monthly tutorials on how to write a column about local happenings. Last winter, Deena Bouknight explained hoarfrost including, mindfully, how to pronounce it. All great word fun!

That’s it but it’s not all. All have won and all shall receive prizes. Writers of the lost art (!), we salute you.