Best-Selling Author
![Ruth MacDougall jpg_edited_edited_edited.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/4e5b69_10402bceaf304bef96b200628f9aa98c~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_940,h_440,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Ruth%20MacDougall%20jpg_edited_edited_edited.jpg)
Ruth Doan MacDougall
Class of 1957
Ruth Doan MacDougall is a member of the Laconia High School Class of 1957. After graduating from LHS, she attended Bennington College in Vermont for two years, and then transferred to Keene State College (Keene Teachers’ College at the time), joining her husband, Don. They were both English majors and graduated in 1961. Ruth’s father, Daniel Doan, was an author as well. She knew she wanted to be an author early on, writing her first story when she was just 6 years old. Ruth and Don were both planning on becoming English teachers, but they couldn't find two jobs close enough to each other. Instead, Don became a teacher, and Ruth decided to take a year off and focus on writing. She wrote full-time and published her first novel in 1965. So far, she has written 9 individual novels, on top of an 8 novel series called the Snowy Series. The first novel in this series, The Cheerleader, became a national bestseller. In addition to being a bestselling author, Ruth has also received the Keene State College Alumni Achievement Award. Even after all her achievements, Ruth, inspired by some words of her father’s, considers herself to still be learning to write.
Ruth's Work
The Snowy Series
The Cheerleader (Best-seller)
Snowy
Henrietta Snow
The Husband Bench
A Born Maniac
A Gunthwaite Girl
Site Fidelity
Lazy Beds
Other Novels
A Woman Who Loved Lindbergh
Mutual Aid
One Minus One
The Lilting House
The Cost of Living
Wife and Mother
Aunt Pleasantine
The Flowers of the Forest
A Lovely Time Was Had By All
Ruth's Activites at LHS
Vice-President of her Senior Class
Cheerleading
Editor-in-Chief of Lakonian Newspaper - Senior year
General Manager of Radio Club - Senior year
Secretary-Treasurer of National Honor Society - Senior year
Dramatics Club
National Forensic League
National Thespian Society
Girls’ Athletic Association
Traffic Squad
U.N. Model Assembly - Junior year
Girls’ State - Junior year
DAR Good Citizen - Senior year
Key Club Sweetheart - Senior year
Ruth's Advice to Current Students
“High school circumstances are so different now from what they were in the 1950s that I wouldn’t dare to offer advice. But I can offer a hope or two. It’s been said that 'adolescence is like seasickness; both are funny, but only in retrospect.' However, while I was reading my high-school diaries for 'research' before I began writing The Cheerleader (my novel about high school in the 1950s), I was struck by how much laughing my friends and I did — then, as teens.
So I can hope for laughter for students during high school as well as later when they look back. And I can hope they have friendships in high school that continue, as mine have through my life."