Teacher hopes to strike 'Gold' with new book

By ANNE KAZMIERCZAK
Register Reporter
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Iola middle and high school photography teacher Donna Regehr is known to have an eye for the creative. But she also has an ear, and put pen to paper to prove it in publishing a new suspense romance novel, “Desert Gold, the Legend of Chinook.”
“I’ve wanted to do this for 35 years,” Regehr said of publishing a book.
“I’ve written other stories before,” Regehr said, but for one reason or another, she never pursued having them published. This summer, cruising online, Regehr found Eloquent Books, an on demand publisher that is promoting her work through amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.
“It’s already sold some,” she said.
Regehr, whose classroom boasts a bounty of photographs of far-off places, set her tale in her own frequent haunts.
“I have gone to Colorado a million times,” Regehr said of the landscape of the book. “I’ve climbed Gray Rock Mountain, where Natty finds the statue.”
In Regehr’s book, a college senior finds a small statuette tucked in the nook of a tree on a mountain trial.
Intrigued, the girl takes the trinket with her, but gets the uneasy feeling she is being watched.
Turns out, she is.
The statue, of pure gold, was stolen from a tribe Regehr calls Cotiquette. The thief was about to retrieve it when protagonist Natty Darrow stumbled upon it.

REGEHR based her tale on impressions gleaned from her travels in the American Southwest. Tribal groups of the region are known to create small icons used for ritual purposes.
However, she said, “The legend is about a group of Indians that are completely nonexistent.”
To combat those who might find fault with her imagery, she purposely invented a tribal group, rather than base her story on one that exists. “I didn’t want to get involved in any group’s belief system,” she said.
To make the story better fit the landscape, Regehr added “tribal lore” to her tale.
The Cotiquette, she said, had an elaborate engagement ritual that young couples must follow in order to wed.
The statuette, she said, “represents Chinook, a legendary tribal hunter.”
It is said that the statue would have gone to Chinook’s bride upon their marriage. Instead, etiquette was breached, and the young couple was banished. Since then, the statuette has served as a reminder of following proper custom.

Of course, Darrow doesn’t know this. She takes the figurine to a local college where she meets the thief, posing as a new professor.
Unnerved by the man, Darrow joins friend at a local club where she “meets a handsome Indian fellow. That’s where the romance comes in,” Regehr said.
The story is a “light romance,” Regehr said. “There’s nothing sweaty about it,” unlike many modern romance novels.
“After all,” Regehr quipped, “I’m a school teacher.”
Regehr said she wrote the book because she loves to read — “It’s one of my favorite things to do,” she said.
“The funny thing is,” Regehr added, “I don’t read a lot of romances.”
But she does like fantasies, so, she said, “I put a lot of fantasy into this book.”
Her next book, which she has already begun, delves more into that realm.
“The antagonist in the story is something intangible,” she said. The story is “less romance and more suspense.”
And, she said, the scenery is unearthly. “The shadows are on the wrong side of the light, that sort of thing.”
Regehr said she will probably follow the same route in publishing the new story.
For now, she is hoping to expand readership of “Desert Gold.”
“I’m going to have the librarian at the middle school look at it and see what she thinks,” Regehr noted. And, she said, “The principal at the high school, David Grover, told me he is going to order two copies for their library. I’m really excited about that.”