Looking back at the best of 10 years: The Cheryls

Continuing to look back on 10 years of (mostly) blissful existence here at The Buzz....

After a chance meet-and-chat with a Buzz editor at a dog park, Cheryl Ursin started writing for us this fall, and we're so happy she did. She has written stories about mandatory student-service hours and whether kids today are too dependent on their helicoptering parents.

This non-native also wrote a story about how newcomers see Houston in the January issue, leading to one of our favorite lead paragraphs:

When we moved to Houston, I toured a house with our real-estate agent. It had what was, to my New York City eyes, a good-sized room off the master bedroom. This room had windows but also, oddly, shelving on all of its walls.

“What’s this?” I asked.

After a long, searching pause, my agent answered, “Why, bless your heart, darling. That’s a closet.”

When trying to pick some of her favorite Buzz stories, Cheryl pointed to the work of another Cheryl:

"I distinctly remember pulling my very first issue of the West University Buzz out of the mailbox. We had just arrived from New York City. I opened it to an article by Cheryl Laird. It was the first time, but not the last, that I laughed out loud at one of Cheryl’s articles. Whether she’s writing about the year her husband got her fencing lessons for Christmas (“You shouldn’t have. Really.”), her first rock concert (Journey) or when the aesthetician in the beauty salon asked her if she wanted to do something about the mustache she didn’t think she had, Cheryl makes me laugh. And I remember, reading her article on my first day in a new neighborhood, thinking, 'This place might be OK, after all.'”