Leigh Sherrill, for 23 years and three months, was known by readers of the Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper as the columnist for Southport. She shared Island news – including reminders about meetings of the boards, and she recorded school-related news, art, music and holiday events, acknowledged the passing of Island residents, and often referred her readers to read about the “rest of the story,” on some topics, elsewhere in each edition of the newspaper.

In the March 17 edition of those papers, Leigh wrote that we were reading her final column. After emailing it to Editor Kevin Burnham, deadlines became part of her past.

Southport’s first columnist was Jill Hansen from 1988 to 2004. Hansen and her husband were Southporters, mostly during the summer season, a.k.a. “snowbirds.” In 2001, the year Sherrill and her husband, the Rev. Christopher “Kit” Sherrill, had just moved into the house they designed and slowly completed finishing work on. The Sherrills were known to most people on Southport Island; their first trip was in 1960, honeymooning at Kit’s grandmother’s cottage.

In a new interview, Leigh Sherrill told the Boothbay Register that to be able to call Southport home was a dream come true and, as it turned out, not the only one for her. Jill Hansen asked her if she would be interested in being the winter Southport columnist and she would write the summer column.

“It was sort of a dream come true, to write the Southport column,” Sherrill said. “I used to read the Monhegan column. I just loved the way the woman described all the goings-on, so, when Jill asked me to do it, I said, 'Of course!'"

How did she get the news?  Her system began with visits to Donna Climo at town hall for “some good chats." Then Sherrill would stop in to have a chat with town office administrator Ashlea Andrews Tibbetts, who didn’t often have news. Next stops were the Island store and the library. Sherrill even went door-to-door in the beginning since most people knew Kit and her, but to those who did not, it was also a way to introduce herself to the neighbors.

The longer they lived on Southport, the more familiar the Sherrills became with the goings-on there.

“You have many feelings about a place you really love. I'm guessing that writing the newsletter was a labor of love." She paused. "It was very much so. And sometimes I would sit down to write and I thought, 'Good grief! What am I going to say?' And then ... it would just come and I'd start to write, and, you know, there's just (that) flow. But, (pause, slight smile) not always.”

She recalled trying to be really creative in the beginning, keeping the style of that Monhegan columnist in mind, while trying to find her voice. Inspired by either “The Iliad” or “The Aeneid,” that she and Kit were reading to each other in the mornings, she recalled one of them had a listing of poetically named places.

“So I started driving around Southport listing town road names I thought were very poetic, too. I handed that column in to Kevin … and it is the only column he never published,” she said with a smile.

Sherrill did find her voice, though. It had a neighbor-talking-to-neighbor vibe. After reading the first few paragraphs, I felt like I was sitting at a table with her as she shared upcoming events while we sipped a good cup of coffee – just like we did when I interviewed her.

I asked her how close she’d come to struggling when information was slim for the column – it is an island, after all. “Well, lots of times,” she said. “I used to say to people, 'If you don't give me news, I'll make it up.' I didn’t of course. But I still think writing (is) somewhat ... magical ... I'd sit down at the computer and start with the little bit I had, and just keep going. Then I'd end up with much more than I thought was possible.”

The Sherrills were travelers and on those occasions Leigh would tap a substitute writer in her absence, among them, Maureen Kinsey and Jim Singer. 

Returning home base from their world travels meant Leigh was soon staring at blank paper in the typewriter or a blank screen on the computer. Those pesky deadlines became tricky for her when the Register changed the deadline for columns to Monday from Tuesday (one of her sources was the library, which didn’t open until Tuesday).

Today, the columnist years aren’t the only things in the past; homebase is now a roomy apartment at St. Andrews Village. The week of April 1, with the help of her three grown kids, everything she would need in her new digs was packed up. I visited her for the interview just four days later and one would have thought she’d been there for months already! “I like to keep things organized,” she said.

Her next chapter may involve writing of a different kind. She showed me some of what she’d written about the story of her and Kit’s marriage, and how they were both from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and met in high school, for starters.

“You know, there's a religious quote, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.’ So I titled (the story about them) ‘Scrambling for The way.’ Believe me, it was a scramble. As you know, with a piece of writing, you can work on it now and then. I did my growing up years. It’s all non-fiction. I don't have the ability to write fiction. But I'll just be sitting around in the den and grab my paper and write some more. Maybe the kids will publish them after I’m gone or something.

“So this is my message to myself: This is a new stage of your life, new – there’s the emphasis; and it's up to me to make the best of it and to enjoy it,” she said. “I'm lucky to be in pretty good health, and it's a beautiful place. And, my daughter is taking over the house, which is wonderful. I will be able to visit there."

The walls of Sherrill's new home display pictures of friends and family, including family members dating back to great-grandparents.