Crowds of 91����Ƶ Royals — whether alumni, family, friends, students, faculty or staff — gathered together for Homecoming and Family Weekend 2023 at 48 events over three days. A total of 529 people registered for those events.

Sixty-eight alumni attended the 50th anniversary Class of 1973 reunion, with 206 attending other reunions stretching from 1958 to 2013. Nine members of the oldest class (1958) reunited by Zoom. According to an email from Advancement Office, 169 people registered for the Music Celebration Concert, 180 registered for the opening breakfast and 127 registered for TenTalks.

The most viewed event on Facebook was the Writers Read with Kate Baer, followed by TenTalks at second and the Music Celebration Concert at third.

It would have been impossible to see everything the weekend had to offer, but we’ve got you covered. Here are some of the homecoming highlights, in case you missed it.

• Music Celebration Concert: An Evening with Madeline Bender helped kick off the Homecoming festivities on Friday night. Madeline Bender ’93, an accomplished soprano who’s performed all across the world, provided audiences at Lehman Auditorium with a smorgasbord of musical entertainment. Click here for a longer writeup of the event. A recording of the event can be viewed on the .

• Nearly every seat in the Suter Science Center lecture hall was filled on Saturday, with everyone in attendance on the edge of those seats as they listened to some amazing stories from three 91����Ƶ alumni at TenTalks. The event, which is modeled after TED Talks, tasks three luminaries with 10 minutes each to impact, influence and inspire the crowd. This year’s speakers were Ryan Gehman ’16, Kevin Ressler ’07 and Madeline Bender ’93. Click here for a longer writeup of the event. A recording of the event can be viewed on the .

• Kate Baer ’07 (right) took the Lehman Auditorium stage on Saturday night to read from her collection of poems, answer questions from the crowd and dispense life and writing advice, all while showcasing her razor-sharp wit. Click here for a longer writeup of the event. A recording of the event can be viewed on the .

• Roughly 250 generous donors and contributors filled Yoder Arena on Friday evening to celebrate another banner year of philanthropy. The five student storytellers recognized at the Donor Appreciation Banquet shared their journey of transformation at 91����Ƶ thanks to donor giving. Click here for a longer writeup of the event.

• Saturday started off with a bang at the Homecoming Celebration Breakfast held at Yoder Arena. The ceremony honored the recipients of its alumni awards: Andy Dula ’91 (right), Paul and Lisa Zendt Shelly ’89 (left) and Basil Marin ’10 (center). It also recognized this year’s Hall of Honor inductees: Miranda White Terry ’08, Jamie Fraysher Runner ’09, Luke Yoder ’08 and the 2003 women’s basketball team.

• Due to the threat of rain, Fall Fest was moved into the gym, where children barreled down inflatable slides, launched themselves into the air in the bounce house and won prizes from a table of giveaways. Several food trucks fed visitors outside the gym as a cart inside scooped Italian ice into cups. While his three children colored with crayons at a nearby table, Luke Yoder, one of the athletes honored earlier that morning, said it was his first time returning for Homecoming. The Iowa resident said it was fun catching up with friends from his class and seeing all the places he had fond memories of.

• Across the hallway from the gym, people packed the athletic suites to honor Roland Landes and his wife, Darlene. Both were present to receive the recognition. Landes, a legendary coach who helmed the most successful men’s cross country and track teams in school history, served 91����Ƶ from 1967 to 1998 as coach, assistant professor of physical education and as supervisor of auxiliary services. His tenure includes coaching five different teams in four sports from 1967 to 1983, finishing with a career record of 223-141 for a 0.613 win percentage. His son and daughter spoke about his character, their favorite memories of him and how much of an impact he had on them and the broader 91����Ƶ community.

• President Susan Schultz Huxman and Mayor Deanna Reed spoke to a group of women in the President’s Reception Room about the mission and goals of Royal Women for 91����Ƶ. The group, led by the visionary trifecta of Reed and co-chairs Louise Hostetter ’79 and Kay Nussbaum ’78, is a new women’s philanthropy and networking initiative to inspire visible leadership, bold investments and empowering networks to impact 91����Ƶ’s future. Its goal is to raise $70,000 for student scholarships, of which $20,000 will be used for immediate impact grants and $50,000 will go into an endowed scholarship fund to create lasting impact for 91����Ƶ students.

• Inside the Black Box Theater, Jackie Font-Guzman, vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion, led a conversation about the DEI efforts on campus. She said that 43.6 percent of the incoming class self-identifies as either Black, Indigenous or Persons of Color. Thirty-five percent of students at 91����Ƶ are first-generation students. “So knowing that, we have a responsibility to make sure that when our students come here, when our staff comes here, when our faculty comes here, that they really feel like they belong, and they feel like this is their space,” she said.

• Later, DEI staff met with students and alumni to discuss the creation of an LGBTQ+ advisory board. An advisory board typically might provide support and accountability to faculty and staff and can also offer strategic direction to some of the efforts moving forward. Nicole Litwiller, who facilitated the event, described the meeting as “an inaugural conversation” and brainstorming space. “We want to hear all your voices and incorporate them into how this advisory board gets created,” she told attendees gathered at the old Common Grounds location.

• Upstairs at the Common Grounds coffee shop, a platter of mugs invited former employees to step behind the counter and make their own favorite drinks. Returning to campus for her 15-year reunion, Aubrey Kreider ’08, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was in the mood for a hot chai and thanked the current crop of baristas who helped make it for her. “They ended up making it for me because everything is totally different,” said Kreider, who worked at Common Grounds for four years. “All the technology’s been upgraded, and obviously, since it’s in a different space, I didn’t know where anything was.”

• Across campus at Lehman Auditorium, Chamber Singers alumni shared their favorite memories from their time on the choir and joined in song together.

• A pop-up swag shop inside University Commons sold apparel and other wares to passersby. Cassidy Walker, a junior and Royal Ambassador helping man the booth, said well over 100 items had been sold about three hours into being open. She said the blue 91����Ƶ crewneck was a bestseller. “I almost bought myself a college parent shirt because I’m like the mom of my friend group,” she said.

• Dymphna de Wild, JMU arts professor, showcased her collection of artist books, digital photographs and collages on Friday during a reception at the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery for her “Solace of Silence” exhibition. Some of her works included pictures of found objects atop freshly laid snow and a sprawling book of coffee filters that have been turned into art.

• Saturday saw some success on the pitch with the 91����Ƶ men’s soccer team besting Ferrum 6-0. The women’s soccer and field hockey teams each lost to Roanoke by a score of 0-4.

• The denouement of the weekend arrived Sunday morning with the Homecoming Worship Service held at Lehman Auditorium. The Chamber Singers led congregants in song and the recipients of this year’s alumni awards addressed the crowd. Click here for a longer writeup of the event.

Photos by Macson McGuigan, Jon Styer/At Ease Design & Consulting, and Rachel Holderman

After some delay, 91����Ƶ’s centennial steering committee met last week to choose a theme for the celebrations, which will last throughout the 2017-18 academic year. “Transformation: Past, Present and Future” will guide the committee’s efforts, chairwoman and class of 1979 alumna Louise Hostetter said Monday.

“The reason we came up with that theme is that, as we look back, the history of Eastern Mennonite School started as a very small, insulated community,” the Harrisonburg resident said. “Over the years, we’ve developed into high school, a university with graduate programs and now [have] become a very global university.”

The nine-person committee, which includes two students and several administrators, began exploring possible celebration ideas in 2008 and commissioned a history of 91����Ƶ by sociologist and Mennonite cultural scholar Donald Kraybill.

91����Ƶ received six proposals from alumni for artistic performances and installations to be featured during the 2017 homecoming weekend. Proposals had to be for theatrical or musical performances, but ideas for incorporating the visual arts were welcomed.

Submissions included a 30-minute original orchestral piece, a musical, a play and an art installation. Hostetter said that although the steering committee did not receive as many proposal requests as expected, members would not reopen the submission process.

“We’ve received some very good proposals, and we feel comfortable with what we have to work with,” Hostetter said. The committee’s centennial budget is “still under development,” she said, and members will meet again next month.

In the meantime, the committee hopes to produce audio and video interviews of alumni and others connected with the university for archival purposes and centennial events.

“Technology provides with us with ways to capture a lot of the memories, as well as people, that have been very important and instrumental in the development of 91����Ƶ,” Hostetter said.

Although 91����Ƶ is not the insulated institution Hostetter said it once was, the ideas of service and peacebuilding have “remained consistent throughout all those changes.” She emphasized the increase in international student membership and global academic partnerships.

In October, of the 1,870 students enrolled, 37 percent identify as nonwhite or international, administrators said.

Hostetter said one of the steering committee’s student members was deliberately chosen to represent the interests of multicultural students. 91����Ƶ remains a Mennonite institution and emphasizes Christian principals, but according to its website, only about 43 percent of the school’s current undergrads have a Mennonite background.

Events will be scheduled throughout the 2017-18 school year but the homecoming weekend for 91����Ƶ and Eastern Mennonite School will be the centerpiece of the celebration. Because 91����Ƶ grew out of Eastern Mennonite School in 1917, the two locations will combine their events for the first time.

Diana Berkshire, EMS associate director of development, said a committee was in place to design EMS’ centennial events, as well as those at the university, but the agenda is not final. Normally, Berkshire said, EMS’ homecoming weekend involves sporting events, performances and as many as 15 class reunions.

“We share a common history,” she said. “There’s so much to celebrate – it’s 100 years.”

Courtesy of the Daily News Record, Jan. 27, 2015

“I lived [in Austin] for a summer, and a bunch of things happened all at once,” Hostetter said. “Harlem got signed to a record label. And right as soon as that happened I decided that the rock-and-roll lifestyle was not for me…. We went all over the United States playing shows, and I said, ‘This is not the kind of lifestyle that I can live.’”

So Hostetter returned to his hometown and approached , chair of the undergraduate teacher program at 91����Ƶ, about gaining a degree in education.

“When he first explored the option of pursuing the program, he didn’t have either English or education as his major. So he was kind of starting over, after already having the undergrad degree,” Smeltzer Erb said.

“And what so inspired me from the very beginning, which I think speaks highly of his character,” she continued, “was the way in which he interacted with peers who were several years younger, in age, and several years younger in development as teachers. He just navigated that classroom with such integrity, such interest, such grace.”

This spring, Hostetter was honored as one of five . His peers selected him to represent Shelburne Middle School, where he is a 6th-grade language arts teacher.

“I’ve been playing music since middle school,” said Hostetter, whose mother, Louise ’79, was recently in 2017-18. “When I graduated high school, I think I knew in the back of my mind that I would be a teacher eventually, but Berklee was kind of my way to prevent that from happening right away, because music was my first love.”

Raised in a Mennonite family and educated at , Hostetter developed early on a sense of social responsibility that influenced his decision to become a teacher.

“I think that probably a lot of my calling has to do with my Anabaptist heritage, the whole idea of serving the community, serving others,” Hostetter said.

“I want [my students] to develop a love for reading and a love for learning and discovery,” said Hostetter, who occasionally uses his vintage ‘73 Epiphone electric guitar to incorporate music into a lesson. “When I meet a student at the beginning of the year who doesn’t necessarily like reading, or isn’t very excited about language arts, if I can foster some kind of change in that disposition, I think that’s incredibly rewarding – because the habits that they make in 6th grade are usually the ones that they take with them for the rest of their academic careers.”

Last summer, Hostetter married Staunton 4th grade teacher, Nicole Barbano Hostetter. who was also one of the five teachers recognized as Teacher of the Year for Staunton City Schools. She was chosen from the faculty of Bessie Weller Elementary School.

The two met at a Staunton bakery three years ago, shortly before teacher orientation began.

“We were both first-year teachers and it was definitely luck that we were in the same place at the same time,” Nicole said. “We were both coming from different experiences, and I think that making the transition to teaching together was such a good experience for us to have. We really supported each other that first year and we continue to do that now.”

Smeltzer Erb attributes John Hostetter’s success in the classroom to his deep passion for learning to teach over time, and his respect for middle-schoolers and colleagues alike.

“For many students, the classroom is perhaps the only safe place in their day,” Smeltzer Erb said. “It’s the place where somebody like John can truly care about them as individuals.”

As one of just two 6th grade English teachers in Staunton, Hostetter’s job connects him to the community.

“Shelburne is wonderful because I get to know half the children who are in Staunton City schools,” Hostetter said. “When my wife and I are walking through the park, I mean, everybody knows us …. And because you’re teaching, and you’re spending seven hours a day with these kids, you get to know the parents pretty well, and I think it does provide a service. I think that public education is an extension of the community.”

Hostetter hasn’t abandoned music. He has “too many” guitars, a home recording studio and plays guitar in a local band named “Elephant Child.”

“I’ve got my guitar in the classroom, and they think that’s the coolest thing in the world,” he said. “And I try to goof around on occasion, and sometimes I’ll play my guitar, and they love that. But it’s not every day that I get to actually sit and sing to them.

“I’m going to dress up like Johnny Cash here in the next couple weeks, for a history lesson.”

A third individual selected as Staunton Teacher of the Year, Dixon Educational Center art teacher Gina Gaines, is also an 91����Ƶ alum, having taken classes in the late 1970s.

“We are delighted that Louise is willing to share her people skills, organizational gifts, eye for detail and enthusiasm with 91����Ƶ at this important time in our history,” said , 91����Ƶ’s director of marketing and communications.

Hostetter will work with those giving leadership to various aspects of the year’s celebrations, including large-venue events involving music, theater and art; alumni gatherings; worship services; academic department gatherings; storytelling; and displays. She will oversee the master schedule and manage the centennial budget.

“91����Ƶ began with the vision of relatively few people and has grown over the past 100 years to a global community,” said Hostetter. “With the resources of those who are currently involved with 91����Ƶ as well as those with past connections, we can explore and honor the history of 91����Ƶ with a variety of events in 2017-18 as well as celebrate the vision going forward.”

Hostetter also serves on: the advisory boards for and the arts complex at James Madison University; the church council of ; and the board of .

In 2011-13 she co-chaired the capital campaign for the and in 2010-11 she was president of the 91����Ƶ Alumni Council. From 1999 to 2012 she was an intensive individualized instructor at .

Coming to 91����Ƶ from Arcola, Ill., Hostetter majored in English education and met her future husband, Alden Hostetter ’79, a pathologist. All three of their sons have attended 91����Ƶ.

A 10-member planning task force began meeting in 2008 “to plan for a centennial plan,” said Wenger. The task force , a 1967 graduate who is the nation’s best-known writer on Amish and Mennonite culture. A sociologist by training, he is a professor at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and the author of dozens of publications.

A page on the 91����Ƶ website, , invites submissions of stories and photographs for centennial celebration use and ideas for the centennial committee to consider.

The centennial celebrations will last throughout the academic year of 2017-18. The biggest gathering will likely be during Homecoming & Parents Weekend in October. A worship service on Oct. 19 will mark exactly 100 years since the start of classes in 1917.

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