On Sundays, Laura would sit to my left at the Life desk at The Hatchet. She would typically be in jeans and ballet flats and be wearing shiny blue nail polish and pink lip gloss. Laura was in charge of “This Week in GW History.” She would leaf through old bound editions of The Hatchet and pick out interesting articles from that week. I remember her reading to me and saying “This is so cool!” as she elongated her l’s so that cool sounded more like “cool-uh.”
- Laura Treanor, 1989-2009
- Friends remember Treanor at memorial service, Catholic Mass
- Cause of student’s death remains a mystery
- Treanor was a positive and outgoing person
- Laura Treanor: Pondering the Pope
- Clayton McCleskey: A return to a spiritual path
- Brittany Levine: Remembering Laura: A life filled with charm, grace and good humor
- Staff Editorial: In Memory of Laura
Laura thought almost everything was cool. We were in the same Digital Media Production class last semester and did every project together. I remember when we were creating our final project, a video documentary, we would bounce ideas off each other and when Laura liked an idea, her eyes and mouth opened wide, she nodded her head, and said “Yeah.”
Because Laura was so open about her thoughts and emotions, it was easy to become her friend. I could tell she was a good person the first time I met her. I could also tell she was a good writer when I read her first few stories for The Hatchet.
Laura started writing for The Hatchet at the beginning of her freshman year. When she turned in a story about a roommate event sponsored by the Residence Hall Association in November 2007, I remember thinking, “This girl is really special.” She knew how to write about people. She took a story that could have come across flat and injected life and personality into it. A few weeks later I saw her walking down H Street by Starbucks. I went up to her and on impulse, asked her if she wanted to be a contributing Life editor. She accepted and asked what I needed her to do. Laura was a go-getter.
Not only that, but she had a good sense of humor. At the beginning of last semester we were shooting our first class project together, a video sequence. My sequence was filling a car with gas. Laura and I drove a Zipcar down to the gas station near HOVA. Laura drove the car as I shot the scenes. She said she was nervous to drive because she had never driven in D.C. before.
Laura drove onto Virginia Avenue and inched into the gas station. Then she pulled up too far past the stall and had to reverse. I started laughing behind the camera and could see Laura laughing at herself in the driver’s seat. She screamed to me from the window, “I’m a horrible driver.” We had to do another take.
Whenever Laura wrote e-mails to me, she would sign them “ttyl,” and when she wanted to express emphasis, she always used at least two exclamation points. She used the phrases “Oh my god” and “like” all the time, which usually drives me crazy, but with her, it was charming.
If I had to describe Laura in one word, that would be it, charming.
