By Kevin Greer
Lakeside Communications Manager
Lisa Hogue has always felt at home at Lakeside. She and her husband, Joel, have a home about a mile from the gates and have enjoyed taking walks around the community. Hogue now spends more time in Lakeside. She’s been working in the Administration Office as a Customer Service Representative for almost two years.
“We’ve had our place up here for 18 years,” Hogue said. “We’ve come to Lakeside a lot through the years for shows, and I just love to walk around and look at the cottages and architecture.”
Hogue’s first Lakeside experience was in eighth grade. When her youth group completed catechism classes at her Lutheran church, they came to Lakeside for a week. For most of the students, it was exciting because it was their first time away from home. She attended church services, ministerial activities and heard Christian rock music for the first time.
“It was a camaraderie and a spiritual journey that you were on with your peers,” Hogue said. “It was guitar-playing rock & roll bands playing religious music, and it was really fun.”
Hogue lived in Columbus for 30 years and worked at a law firm there for 27 years. However, the pandemic forced the company to lay off employees, and unfortunately, Hogue was one of them. After a brief stint working at Lowe’s, she saw the job opening online for a Customer Service Representative at Lakeside and applied immediately.
“When I ended up getting laid off, it was really sad at first because I enjoyed the people I worked with,” Hogue said. “I was really happy to come here to my second love.”
Hogue’s role as Customer Service Representative is to support the Lakeside Team and help guests and homeowners. She works at the front desk of the Administration Office with Mary Stimmel and Nila McCullough and describes both as “priceless.” Hogue wants anybody coming to the office to feel comfortable when needing assistance or questions answered.
“Number one, I love helping people,” Hogue said. “I think it’s important to be a good communicator and for people to feel safe to come to me, and that I’m going to help them through their questions or problems. I enjoy that greatly.”
In many cases, the Administration Office is the first place people visit or call when seeking Lakeside information. Hogue says the office is a busy place during the summer. However, she says Lakesiders come first and will assist them in–person or on the phone.
Hogue’s fondness for Lakeside architecture makes her a great fit as the secretary for the Historic Preservation & Design Review Board. She assists homeowners in the application process for projects on Lakeside cottages. It’s a rather large document that can be overwhelming at times, but Hogue works diligently to make the process less stressful.
“I think my part is to kind of demystify things,” Hogue said. “I just want to help Lakesiders through the process.”
Hogue graduated Summa with a bachelor’s degree in art education from Ohio State University. One of her favorite things to do is the Lakeside tradition of rock painting, mostly with animals. A project she’s planning is to go around Lakeside taking pictures of the cottages, then sketching various components of the architecture for bookmarks.
Hogue says Lakeside is special because you see things here that aren’t seen in many other places. She enjoys the rock statues along Ohio’s Most Beautiful Mile, throwbacks like sidewalk chalk messages and the freedom kids have without the need of a parents’ watchful eyes.
“There’s just a simplicity of life here,” Hogue said. “I think it’s a shared love of everybody that comes here because they all say Lakeside is awesome, but they’re part of what makes like Lakeside awesome.”
