Stella G. Knicely, 72, of Mount Crawford, passed away Sunday, Dec. 6, 2020, at her home. A graveside service was Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, at Pike Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg with Linden Rhodes officiating. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Gideons International, PO Box 734, Harrisonburg, VA 22803.

Memories shared in the comments below will be passed on to her family.

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Many of us who knew Stella Knicely, longtime administrative secretary of 91����Ƶ’s physical plant, will remember her just as she appears in the feature image above: a slight woman dwarfed by a very large desk and counter, but clearly in charge of everything within her view, more than a little forbidding when you stopped in to pick up a key or or sign out a university vehicle.

Surely, many of us also will smile and nod at learning that Braydon Hoover, who knew Stella both as a student and then in his various roles in the Advancement division, considered it a personal triumph if a joking remark earned the reward of her smile. “I always tried,” Hoover said, “and didn’t always succeed, but when I did, her smile would light up the room.” 

Thanks to former colleagues Eldon Kurtz and Ed Lehman for these photos, which tell their own story of Stella at 91����Ƶ.  

There’s Stella with President Loren Swartzendruber, who made the trip down to the Physical Plant to present her with a plaque in recognition of her years of service because she demurred wider recognition. Her smile is delightful and the fact that a photographer was present to take this photo tells us that her colleagues were just as delighted for her.

And the pancake-flipping? When she retired in 2015, after more than 22 years of service, Stella shared her party with colleague Lewis Driver and insisted on flipping pancakes on the grill to stay out of the spotlight. 

Finally, there’s the photo of Stella with a tea set gifted to her by her physical plant colleagues. Eldon recalls that family was all-important to Stella, and that sharing tea parties with family members was an important and treasured tradition. The 91����Ƶ tea set was, then, also a gift from family.

Eldon remembers Stella as dependable, professional, a stickler for detail and protocols, and with a concern for justice and fairness. “Her colleagues who interacted with her over time came to appreciate her honesty, sense of humor, sensitivity and kindness,” he said. 

Her sterling qualities, especially her capacity to show and share grace, helped her weather many changes in the Physical Plant, and at the university, from 1992 to 2015, Eldon noted, including “a supervisor who was very different from her.”

“Her insights, challenges, and support” were of great value during the 17 years they worked together, “much to my benefit as well as that of the university.”  

Among his cherished memories are moments of deep fellowship, raising candid conversations about faith, hopes and fears with Stella and colleague Loretta Helmuth over the office counter. Stella took those times to heart and offered not only a listener’s heart and counsel if needed but sometimes more: “When Stella said she would pray about something, you knew it was happening.” 

Ed, who was assistant director under Kurtz and now serves as director of the renamed Facilities Management, shares similar memories: “She was very professional with a bit of humor once you got to know her. Always a stickler for following process and policy, she was very organized and knowledgeable about our campus, its faculty and staff, and had a genuine servant’s heart. Her gracious spirit endeared her to those of us who worked closely with her, and she had a way of keeping us at our best, most of the time.”

Stella is survived by five sisters, Hazel Shirk of Rockingham, Rhoda Showalter and husband, Larry, of Seneca Rocks, W.Va., Fay Brubaker and husband, Harold, of Harrisonburg, Mabel Knicely of Mount Crawford and Elsie Showalter and husband, Robert, of Broadway; and two brothers, Boyd Knicely and wife, Mabel, of Weyers Cave, and Wade Knicely and wife, Rhoda, of Mount Crawford. She is also survived by numerous nieces and nephews. Preceding her in death, in addition to her parents, are her brother, Fred Knicely and wife, Dawn; brother-in-law, Mervin Shirk; and great-niece, Christine Hobbs.

“Gasp!” exclaimed one former student. “Noooo,” said another. A third alum recalled his “two great years in that drafty old house.” Yet another: “Sad to see a part of my life is now gone.”

In the 1970s, Martin House was among several sites that became intentional communities for 91����Ƶ students. Normally the communities were led by an older couple who lived in the house. In the case of Martin House, Loren and Pat Swartzentruber were early leaders. Loren is now .

The 86-year-old house, on the corner of a busy intersection at the edge of campus, needed to give way to a future traffic roundabout and a formal entrance to 91����Ƶ. The is planning a solution to the awkward and dangerous intersection of Chicago Avenue, Park Road, and Mt. Clinton Pike. At the same time 91����Ƶ asked an architectural firm to develop options for building a welcoming entrance for visitors who turn into Park Road.

Lewis and Cora Martin built the house in 1927 when they moved from Maryland to the edge of campus to operate what was known for many years as Martin’s Store. It was located across Mt. Clinton Pike from them. 91����Ƶ eventually acquired the store, turning it into a snack shop. Today the former store is part of complex.

Martin House was still structurally sound but needed a new roof, windows, wiring, and plumbing to bring it up to current standards for student housing. “Basically the house needed everything,” said , assistant director of . “It wasn’t worth the cost of investing in Martin House, knowing that its future was uncertain.”

For the last two years, the house stood empty, and its condition deteriorated further. “It’s amazing what happens when a building is not breathing,” said , longtime physical plant director.

The future traffic roundabout will take more space than a normal intersection, but it will be safer, more sustainable, and won’t need stop lights, say Harrisonburg city officials. Roundabouts are common in Europe and becoming more popular in the United States.

But don’t look for the roundabout at Homecoming 2013 or even Homecoming 2014 or 2015. Such major changes occur on a long timeline, involving the coordination of the city, university and multiple other parties.

To make room, in addition to demolishing Martin House, 91����Ƶ has already torn down Village House on the intersection and will demolish Redmond House as well as one of the Village apartments in the near future.

The biggest drawback to the demolitions, according to Kurtz, is the loss of student housing options, especially for intentional communities.

One solution circulating on campus is to transfer an academic department or two from houses to a three-story former residence hall named Roselawn. The departments’ houses would then be available for student housing. Another solution is for older 91����Ƶ students to create intentional communities off-campus, as is already happening.

In the meantime, 91����Ƶ continues to purchase private homes that become available near campus. An entire residential block adjacent to the campus to the north, for example, is now owned by 91����Ƶ, with the exception of two homes. Kurtz and others dream of a “sustainable neighborhood development” that would be a mix of renters and owners who are students, faculty, retirees, and others. The development would include common shared areas.

“We need to continually assess all the spaces we have on campus so that we can use them more efficiently and sustainably,” said Kurtz.

It won’t be long until lights up again with comments on new initiatives.

Committed to eco-great buildings

With the completion of renovations to in time for the Fall 2011 semester, all three residence halls surrounding the “Woods quad” at 91����Ƶ – Cedarwood, Elmwood and Maplewood – have been constructed or renovated to meet LEED Gold standards for environmental sustainability.

and residence halls have LEED “Gold” certifications from the , with the Gold certification for Maplewood pending in the winter of 2012.

As of July 2012, 91����Ƶ’s two LEED Gold-certified buildings were among just 123 such residence halls on university campuses across the country. Besides the ones at 91����Ƶ, there is just one other LEED Gold building on any Virginia university campus, according to the U.S. Green Building Council.

Cedarwood, built to replace the old Oakwood residence hall, opened in the fall of 2009 and was the first to receive the LEED Gold certification. Elmwood was renovated in time for the Spring 2011 semester.

Local and recycled materials

Green features of the residence halls include the use of numerous recycled materials, recycling of nearly all construction waste, high-efficiency lighting and plumbing fixtures, extensive natural lighting, low-VOC materials and an emphasis on locally sourced building materials.

Surrounding the buildings is landscaping with native plants that require no permanent irrigation system and the use of “biorentention” beds around the residence halls to control storm water runoff.

Highly efficient “variable refrigerant flow” heat pump systems and other features like efficient exhaust systems afford the two dorms energy cost reductions of about 30 percent compared to conventional new construction. Additionally, after the first year of operation, electrical use in the dorms is more than 15 percent further below those projections.

Each room in the new residence halls is equipped with a switch that automatically turns off the room’s heat or AC when the windows are open, allowing students to let in fresh air without wasting climate-controlled air from the inside.

“Even though we’ve upgraded these dorms and made them fully climate controlled, our energy use across campus has gone down,” says , director of .

Reduced energy consumption

After the new constructions and renovation, says Kurtz, 91����Ƶ added about 80,000 square feet of new air-conditioned space (none of the Woods dormitories were previously air-conditioned.) At the same time, the campus’ total electric and gas bill, which averaged an inflation-adjusted $572,000 per year between 1999 and 2008, fell to $519,000 for the 2011-2012 fiscal year – a 9 percent reduction in campus-wide energy costs since the overhaul of the Woods quad.

, an architecture firm based in Mishawaka, Indiana, designed all three buildings and worked with 91����Ƶ to meet the stringent LEED standards.

From an energy consumption standpoint, heating, cooling and powering buildings on campus consumed about 45,000 British thermal units (Btu) per square foot of building space – a common way of measuring energy use – over the course of the 2011-2012 fiscal year. That’s a 26-percent improvement from 1999 to 2008, when 91����Ƶ used a yearly average of 61,000 Btu per square foot across the entire campus.

91����Ƶ consumed about 49,000 Btu-per-square-foot on campus during the calendar year 2011, according to data from the , or APPA. The average figure that year for 38 American universities with enrollment between 1,000 and 2,000 students that participated in the APPA survey was 89,000 Btu per square foot.

Because of several concurrent sustainability initiatives on campus, however, including the , it is difficult to measure the precise impact of the dorms alone on 91����Ƶ’s total energy use and cost.

Like many other technologies, the printing industry was an evolving species when Mike Reno got involved in the business in 1976.

Back then, Reno serviced office equipment for A.B. Dick Company, including "Hildegard," an automated offset copier that occupied a large room on the north end of second floor of the old Eastern Mennonite College (now University) administration building. The behemoth piece of equipment was so unusual at the time that the local newspaper wrote a feature article extolling its/her reproductive capabilities.

Reno recalls when 91����Ƶ purchased an A.B. Dick 901 copier capable of cranking out an amazing five letter- or legal-size copies a minute.

In the late 1980s, Reno started his own business of selling and servicing office equipment, with 91����Ƶ among his regular clients. He sold that business to his former employer, A.B. Dick, in 1990, worked for other printers and eventually bought his own print shop in Waynesboro.

In April, 2003, Reno became a contract printer for printing and copying services on the 91����Ƶ campus, meaning he owns the business and contracts his services to clients, with the university taking first priority. The shop, at the north end of the physical plant facilities, provides full-service printing and binding to 91����Ƶ persons and departments and a number of off-campus clients.

"The university is strongly behind this operation, providing utilities, computer, phone and other support," Reno said. "In return, I’m able to give special pricing to 91����Ƶ for its print needs, large and small jobs alike."

It’s now a fully digital shop that includes a digital platemaker. This means that Reno can receive a print piece like the faculty-staff monthly newsletter, "Campus Bulletin," in PDF format on his computer, make a plate in about three minutes and once on the press, 500 copies of the publication roll off the press in roughly 20 minutes.

He recently added a full-color printer capable of producing anything from business cards to 13" x 19" posters. The and office submit the biggest jobs on a regular basis, although the annual program is another major print piece.

Reno does most production work in the evening, freeing him during the day for consultations with clients and preparing jobs for printing.

Even though he feels the "press" of the moment, he welcomes queries from 91����Ƶ faculty and staff anytime at 432-4543 or mike.reno.@emu.edu.

"I never thought I’d enjoy standing next to a printing press, but I find myself enjoying it – it’s a challenge," Reno said.