Waverly, N.Y. — Waverly resident and writer Maggie Barnes thought she was doing a good thing, but a little research into the impact of cashews on squirrels sent her running out the door to save a small, furry life.
“I looked at my heaping gift of poison pills, then at the squirrel and began to panic. Great. I was about to single-handedly wipe out the gray squirrel population in East Elmira,” the columnist wrote in “Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut” for Mountain Home Magazine, a lifestyle publication based in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. That column, along with two others, recently earned Barnes first place for column writing by the Pennsylvania Press Association’s 2022 Keystone Press Awards.
The humor and human interest writer received the award for her columns which celebrate the silliness in everyday life; a remembrance of her mother-in-law’s stubbornness about Thanksgiving dinner, the frustrating habit of her spouse to only call her when she’s done something stupid, and the above-mentioned accidental attempt on the life of a squirrel. To read Barnes’ first-place, award-winning columns, visit mountainhomemag.com and search for the following titles:
“Over the River and Through the Woods”
“One Ringy-Dingy”
“Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut”
Barnes also earned a second place award in the Business Category with a profile of Grovedale Winery in Wyalusing, Pa. This brings to five the total number of Keystone Press awards she has won. Barnes will be in Harrisburg, Pa., in the fall to attend the award ceremony.
Barnes has also written a book, The Glory Hill Diaries, and it is available through Amazon.
