The LaGrange Daily News recently brought back the December cookie contest, a time-honored favorite this holiday season that had been dormant during the last few years. We were happy to bring this tradition back, and were pleased with the community response and entries we received. The entries were delicious and well-prepared, and it was evident all were prepared with attention to detail and superb craftsmanship.

Debbie Morris, Maureen Gay and Bailey Wilson were declared the winners of the traditional category, decorated category and children’s category, respectively. Morris baked a batch of cranberry orange cookies that made the mouth water, while Gay whipped up a batch of rolled sugar cookies, decorated festively in the shape of Christmas trees and Wilson created pretzel caramel chip cookies that tasted even better than they sound.

We appreciate those winners, along with the rest of the contestants, for taking time out of their busy holiday schedules to join in on some holiday fun. The goal of such a contest was to simply provide an outlet for the community to further engage with the newspaper and each other, and what better way to do just that than through the baking of cookies?

In our quest to continually provide opportunities for increased engagement with our subscribers and the Troup County community as a whole, this cookie contest was simply the latest way to harness that engagement. Though future efforts may not always be as tasty as this one happened to be, we hope they will continue to create a sense of camaraderie and foster a deeper sense of community.

For those cookie contest participants this year, we hope you will continue to participate years into the future, and we hope we have the chance to taste the handiwork of even more citizens in years to come