Lew Cohn

Eleven years ago, I decided to leave the comfy confines of community journalism for corporate America, taking a job with healthcare insurer Cigna in Denison, Texas, as a customer service representative.

Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

The Highlander

The year was 1975 and I was in kindergarten. My favorite NFL football team was the Dallas Cowboys and my favorite player, without a doubt, was the quarterback, No. 12, future Hall of Famer Roger Staubach. My family were staunch Cowboys supporters and had been since the team was first formed as an expansion team in 1960. Blankets, pillowcases, toboggan hats, even pajamas — if it was branded with the “star,” I most likely got it from my parents in the 1970s.

An event would happen that year that would have a lasting impact on my friends and me as Cowboy fans. Of course, I am talking about the famous “Hail Mary” pass from Staubach to Drew Pearson to win the NFC Divsional playoffs.

A ceramic bird feeder takes on a double meaning after a pair of Horseshoe Bay wrens claim it as the perfect nook for their clutch of eggs.

Texas is a nesting host to more wren species than any other state, nine of the 10 in North American. Once a nest is complete and accepted as home sweet home, incubation of eggs takes around two weeks before hungry mouths demand bugs and spiders for another fortnight before fledglings fly away.

Highlander Sports Editor Mark Goodson captured this scene. Can you match his shot? Have a great photo from your summer in the Highland Lakes? Share it with Managing Editor Lew Cohn, lew@highlandernews.com. Don't forget to include your name and a little bit about the photo.

by Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

Highland Lakes Newspapers

Very few people have not heard of the theory of six degrees of separation — the theory that everyone and everything in the world are connected by six or fewer steps from any other person or thing in the world.

This theory was originally introduced by a Hungarian author, Frigyes Karinthy, in a 1929 short story, “Chains” (Lánczemek) and is used to demonstrate how the world, though incredibly large, can be a small place through our interconnectedness.

by Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

Highland Lakes Newspapers

This year has been a tough one for entertainers. We have lost some great names in the arts, including Prince, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Patty Duke, Maurice White, Harper Lee, Pat Conroy, Merle Haggard and Muhammed Ali.

This week, we added another name to the list of greats we have lost — our very own columnist, former Texas Press Association president and Texas Newspaper Hall of Fame honoree Willis Newman Webb.

Willis passed away at his residence in Lake Charles, Louisiana, on Monday, July 18, at the age of 79. Below this column is the first of the last two columns Willis wrote for us. The other will appear in next week's Highlander.

by Lew K. Cohn

Managing Editor

Highland Lakes Newspapers

For the past few months, my fellow cast and crew at the Hill Country Community Theatre have been recreating the fictionalized story of sharpshooters Annie Oakley and Frank Butler on stage in the Irving Berlin muscial “Annie Get Your Gun.”

The production features some of the most recognizable music in the history of American theater, including the anthemic “There's No Business Like Show Business” and the rousing “Anything You Can Do.”

As of today, July 29, we have three more productions of this show — at 7:30 p.m. tonight and tomorrow, July 30, and at 2:15 p.m. Sunday, July 31 — before we say goodbye to Col. Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show and strike the set.

By LEW K. COHN

The Highlander

Managing Editor

Texas Tech Chancellor Robert Duncan's recent visit to Marble Falls has revealed just how important the Highland Lakes campus is to the university system. Friday, May 6 was the first time the chancellor had visited the campus at the Frank Fickett Educational Center and he noted that the regional site is definitely “an asset in the Texas Tech System.”

Highland Lakes Publishing, LP publisher, Frank Shubert, announced this week that Lew K. Cohn would take the reigns as managing editor of the Marble Falls Highlander and the Burnet Bulletin.

Cohn, 45, is an award-winning former editor and publisher of several newspapers in Texas with more than 23 years experience in community journalism.

“We are incredibly fortunate to have Lew as the managing editor of our publications in the Highland Lakes,” said Shubert. “These communities, which we are privileged to serve, will benefit greatly from Lew’s comprehensive experience as a journalist and director of our editorial and digital products.”