I'm surprised that Garrison Keillor wasn't on your list. He'd be my top choice by far, for all the right reasons: fundamentally an amazingly productive writer, tells lengthy, often complex and surprising down-home stories based on his own background, with more than enough humor, irony, and philosophical content to go around; can be a blistering social critic, and funny as hell. Plus a musician and crusading, inventive radio artist and comic dramatist. I think Sam would approve of him as the best candidate for inheriting his legacy. Ben