If you’ve been visiting or working at Pinehurst for any of the last 30 or so years, you have likely run into Lessie McLaurin at some point.
Remember the Donald Ross Grill? You would’ve seen her there. Go back even further. Remember Hackers? You might’ve seen her there. There were stints in the Members Club, at No. 9, around The Cradle and working for the banquets team. Heck, you might see her after she’s picked up a shift after a long day as a server at The Tavern, all because someone called and asked if she could fill in because someone was out sick.
“I’ve touched a little bit of everywhere,” she says.
Wait, the name doesn’t ring a bell? Oh, right. Got it. We’ll fix that.
“Well, I’d say most of my teachers never even knew my real name,” she says. “I was just Bunny.”
Lessie “Bunny” McLaurin – or, simply, “Miss Bunny” to many, if not most – has been one of the shining stars of the Pinehurst Resort food and beverage teams for nearly three decades. Even for a brief moment – about a year – when she left the Resort, Bunny wasn’t really gone. She’d pick up part-time shifts here and there when large groups would come in.
“I needed a break, and I took a break, and I wanted to see what else was out there,” Bunny says. “So, I went out there to see if the grass was greener on the other side. And when I got there, it wasn’t. So I came back.”
She’s been here ever since, working her way around the Resort in any number of outlets, but for the last five years, The Tavern. She’s never far from sight.
“People will ask, ‘Where’s Bunny?’ They ask for Bunny, and I do love people. And people love me. And they come here year after year after year. I remember most of their faces – I don’t remember all their names – but I remember faces. And, you better know, they remember me. And they’ll say, ‘Bunny, how are you still here?’ And I say, ‘Where else would I be?’ If they sent me out the front door, I’d just come right back through the back door.”
That’s the thing – Lessie “Bunny” McLaurin rarely ever stops, unless it is to, as she says, “Fool her feet.” She likes to change shoes during the day to keep soreness at bay. Not even the soles of Bunny’s feet can keep up with her.
For most of her life, nobody has.
“When I was born, there were three Lessie’s in the family. My grandma was Lessie, my aunt was Lessie and I was Lessie. We had a farm, and we had a huge cucumber field. We’d go out to pick cucumbers, and mama would say, ‘Bunny, where you at?’ And she’d look down the field and I’d be halfway down the road with a salt-shaker, a cucumber and I’d be, like, having a snack.
“So, me, I ran and hopped everywhere I went. And I didn’t have but two front teeth. And so it stuck.”
Fortunately for the guests of Pinehurst Resort, so has she, even if it isn’t always in one place.
By Alex Podlogar