BLOOM June/July 2018

June/July 2018

The Wisdom Of A

Winner

Jmu Lacrosse Coach Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe Mixes Compassion And Success

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June/July 2018

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Courtesy of Katie Nesbitt

WEDDING

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Wedding favors are changing with industry trends and, in some cases, disappearing.

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The Woman Behind The Mask

HOME

Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe has a long history with JMU lacrosse that has culminated into breaking records and changing lives.

Cover photo: Daniel Lin

Corey Tierney, editor Justin McIlwee, staff writer Shelby Mertens, staff writer Daniel Lin, photography Jennifer Dehoff, design Rhonda McNeal, advertising director

Bloom is a publication of the Daily News-Record Copyright Š 2018

Daniel Lin

Staff

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Do me a Favor: Wedding Couples remix (or nix) A Wedding Tradition

By Justin McIlwee

W

hen Sydney Avveduti and her husband, David, got married in May 2017, they wanted to keep it simple and casual. “We got married at the Barn at Klines Mill and we just wanted it to be very informal and comfortable,” Sydney Avveduti said. “We didn’t want people to feel like they had to go out and buy something to wear. We did barbecue ... and it was very, very simple.”

And to continue the theme of simple, the only thing Avveduti’s guests went home with at the end of the night were memories of two people in love making a commitment to each other.

That’s right, after Sydney and David said “I do” to each other, they said “I don’t” to wedding favors.

After attending the wedding of her brother-inlaw, and seeing how many favors the couple had left over after the reception, Sydney made a decision.

“When we were talking about ways to cut costs, we 2

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decided that was a place where we could save a few hundred dollars,” she said.

“And we could spend that money on another appetizer or something our guests would appreciate more than just the stereotypical wedding favors.”

The tradition of giving a wedding favor is a very old one that involves the bride and groom giving the guests a token of appreciation for coming to the wedding.

Personalized candies, candles and flowers are just some of the common favors given to guests. But, as Jessie Mooney points out in a June 27, 2017, article in GQ Magazine, “I honestly cannot recall a single wedding favor that I’ve used, or even could locate, a year later.”

To back up that point, Haleigh Davis, owner of Sweet Southern Party, an event planning service in Penn Laird, said that when it comes down to it, couples just don’t want to give guests something that they won’t ever use again. “There’s so

June/July 2018

much waste in the industry with weddings. I think people just don’t want to buy one more thing that’s just going to get thrown away,” she said. “Everything, not just with weddings but across the board, is going more toward eco-friendly and reusable, so it’s important to find an item that’s not just going to be tossed.”

As Terrie Dean, owner of The Wishing Well in Harrisonburg, explained, another big reason couples are moving away from traditional favors, or any favors for that matter, is because extravagant weddings are becoming more and more common. “The extravagance of weddings has grown significantly in the last 10 years,” she said. “Weddings used to be a one-day event; guests would come on a Saturday afternoon to church, they would attend a reception and then they would go home. That is not the case anymore. Weddings these days can be an entire week.”

If couples opt for wedding favors, food items are a popular choice.

But if a couple does decide they want to send their guests home with a token of appreciation, what’s the best way to do it without breaking the already expanding wedding bank?

“I think people are moving more toward usable things, not just a koozie with names on it,” Davis said. “They’re looking at food items like honey or jam or plantable seed packets. I’ve also seen lottery tickets. [These are] things that somebody’s not going to just take home and toss.”

Jessica Lail, owner of It’s Your Day Weddings and Events, based in Linville, said she’s seen a trend with edible favors. “I’ve seen mostly food related items,” she said. “Probably the most popular last year was a custom cookie or cake pop.

One of my clients made their own seasoning for meats, veggies and potatoes; they custom designed it, bottled it and everything. But favors are tough because if you don’t put it on their plate and

“There’s so much waste in the industry with weddings. I think people just don’t want to buy one more thing that’s just going to get thrown away.”

Courtesy of Katie Nesbitt

they’re not edible, people aren’t always taking them.”

For those couples who do move forward with favors, planners are noticing that while the favors may have shrunk in stature, brides and grooms are still making sure they bring their “A” game in terms of creativity.

“Brides and grooms are still trying to be clever,” Dean said. “Part of the whole fun of the offering of the favor is to be very clever with it and let that be one of the last things you have to say to your guests as they’re leaving.”

Davis added, “[Creativity] is the new normal. With Pinterest comes a little bit of competition. Ten years ago, there weren’t really a lot of places to see other weddings. But now, I feel like trends ebb and flow all at once, that almost every

— Haleigh Davis Coffee mugs are a usable and creative wedding favor.

single one of my brides say, ‘I want my wedding to be different.’ It really drives people into putting more thought into their decision.”

Ultimately, when it comes to whether to give a wedding favor, Dean said that many couples make that decision based on the long term.

“What people have done is

they take a look at the return on their investment,” she said. “How much am I going to get out of this? Am I going to see my guests take this at all? Is it just going to be left behind at the reception? As they ask themselves those questions, one of the first things to go off the tables are the favors.”

For Sydney Avveduti and her husband, they found out that not giving favors at their wedding didn’t have any effect on her guests.

“After our wedding, I asked a couple of guests about it, and none of them even noticed,” she said. “I don’t think it’s something that people really care about.”

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June/July 2018

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The Woman Behind The Mask

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f you walked into Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe’s office on the third floor of Godwin Hall on the James Madison University campus, it would be easy for your eyes to go directly to the championship trophies. She’s got plenty of those.

It would also be easy to focus on her coach of the year accolades, because those aren’t scarce, either. It would even be understandable if the first thing you noticed was her JMU hall of fame poster sitting beside her desk.

While you do eventually notice all of those things around the room, what you probably notice first are the pictures. Framed photos of former players decorate three of the four walls like a wordless yearbook — memories of teams past.

But why are they there? Surely someone who’s been around the game of lacrosse for 30 years and has a hall of fame career would have more important wall decorations, right? Teams come and go.

But there’s the rub: after talking to Klaes-Bawcombe, it’s pretty apparent that, outside of her husband and kids, there’s nothing more important than the girls on her team and being someone the players can look up to.

“It just gives me so much pride, because I am somebody who is trying to make a difference in the JMU community, through JMU lacrosse,” Klaes-Bawcombe said. “I love being able to have an impression on people; that is something that I love — to be able to influence people toward just feeling good about themselves.”

Before JMU Sports are in her blood. Growing up in Baltimore, KlaesBawcombe came from sports. Her father grew up in Greenwich, Conn., played basketball and was eventually awarded a scholarship to play at Loyola College. Her mother, who grew up in Baltimore, played both tennis and basketball at Loyola. So, it was safe to say that Klaes-Bawcombe was destined for athletics. But which one?

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June/July 2018

JMU’s Klaes-Bawcombe Focuses On Her Players As People

By Justin McIlwee

Photos by Daniel Lin

“As I was growing up, I was just really fortunate enough to probably try every sport in the book,” she said. “Figure skating, to dancing, to gymnastics, to the team sports: basketball, softball, soccer.”

But it was the one she learned to play last that people know her for most today. “Lacrosse was the last sport I picked up,” she said. “To me, it was just such a perfect combination of all the other sports I had played, all in one.”

In soccer, she loved the full-field aspect, while in basketball, she was a post player, playing near the net, ready to put back a shot if someone missed. Combine those qualities and you have the makings of a star lacrosse player.

In her freshman year of high school, she was a varsity player in both soccer and basketball and was pulled up to varsity in lacrosse for the team’s postseason. And even then, at an early age, winning was in her blood on the lacrosse field. “Our lacrosse program was just really strong,” she said. “I mean, my high school career, I only lost two games.”

As she became a stronger lacrosse player, however, the time period in which she played became a bigger problem. Klaes-Bawcombe played lacrosse in the early 1990s — a time where there weren’t many Division I lacrosse programs to choose from. She had the opportunity to walk on at Loyola, since her father played basketball. But despite the fact that most of her high school teammates and friends went to Loyola, Klaes-Bawcombe wanted to do something different.

“I really wanted to make my own name,” she said. “Having an

JMU women’s lacrosse head coach Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe works with her team during practice.

“It just gives me so much pride, because I am somebody who is trying to make a difference in the JMU community, through JMU lacrosse.”

— Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe opportunity to kind of become independent from my family, go away from home to school, and JMU just kind of fit the bill. JMU was actually the only school that offered me a scholarship. It was a partial scholarship and I think that this was just an awesome opportunity to make my own path.”

The coach that recruited her, JMU hall of famer Dee McDonough, explained that she saw something in Klaes-Bawcombe that made McDonough want her to be a Duke. “Shelley has a fire about her,” McDonough said. “She has a desire to be the best that she can be and that was very evident even when she was in high school. I went to see her play, and just watching her you could just tell she wanted to be the best and she wanted to win and that’s definitely what you have to have when you play college lacrosse.”

Another aspect that drew Klaes-Bawcombe to Harrisonburg was the fact that her sister, Laura, also played lacrosse for the Dukes.

Since the pair never played together in high school, Shelley jumped at the chance to play with her at JMU. “Both of my siblings, my older sister and my younger brother, were a product of the private school system in Baltimore,” Klaes-Bawcombe said. “So, for me to then be teammates with my sister in college for the first time was pretty cool considering we had played [separately] from middle school all the way up into college.”

College Days Making the three-hour trek from Baltimore to Harrisonburg was more than just switching zip codes; it meant she could start a whole new life. “When I came to JMU, I really just felt like it was a place that I could become anything I wanted to be,” she said. “And, so, I just

embraced every aspect of it.”

And be anything she did. While the JMU lacrosse team was not fully funded, Klaes-Bawcombe said that the team was never outside the top 10 in her four years as a player. And, as McDonough said, Klaes-Bawcombe had a lot to do with Madison’s success. “She started as a freshman, which often doesn’t happen anymore,” McDonough said. “She contributed right away; she was definitely going to be a star.”

While at JMU as a player, Klaes-Bawcombe helped the team compile a 42-28 record, including winning the inaugural CAA tournament in 1997 and reaching the NCAA lacrosse tournament in 1995 and 1997. She was co-captain of the 1997 squad and was named a first team all-American that year. According to her bio on the JMU website, “She currently ranks in the top 12 in three JMU career categories, including fifth in assists (71), ninth in points (196) and 12th in goals (125).”

After she graduated, she was even invited to try out for the U.S. National Team. “Back then, there was nothing, there was no club [after college],” she said. “There was only the U.S. National team, and I made it to the last tryouts, but I got cut.” But Klaes-Bawcombe left the team with more than goals and assists, wins and losses. “I just kind of always felt like I could make a difference,” she said. “And I had the confidence to put myself out there, and make that happen.

So, in order for me to give back to the sport, it was gonna have to be through coaching.”

When she first started at JMU as a player, Klaes-Bawcombe had no idea what she wanted to do after her playing days were over. But as her lacrosse career started winding down, her focus started to narrow

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and a goal started to form in her mind. “By my junior year, I knew I wanted to be a college coach, I knew I wanted to be a head coach and I knew I wanted to possibly come back here, JMU, one day,” she said.

Coach Shelley After being the lone senior on the 1997 team, KlaesBawcombe stayed in Harrisonburg after graduation, albeit in a different capacity. “I stayed and coached the team that I left, as an assistant coach,” she said.

Klaes-Bawcombe stayed on as a volunteer assistant under then-coach Jenny Ulehla. Klaes-Bawcombe would work at a local gym from 6 to 10 a.m., then come and volunteer her time with the lacrosse team. “I think that was probably something that was eye opening for me,” she said. “Switching roles from player to coach, I was always a person that was able to do it. And so, I could show you how to do something. And when you become a coach, now you have to get them to do it. It doesn’t matter what you can do. That was eye opening for me.”

Then, for the first time in five years, her path took her out of Harrisonburg and up north to Hofstra University, where after just a year as a JMU volunteer assistant, she was offered a job as a paid assistant for the Pride. “I got hired at Hofstra University, where I stayed for eight years,” Klaes-Bawcombe said. “[I was an] assistant coach for three, [then the] head coach retired and they retained me as the head coach.”

In her five years at Hofstra, the Pride won 50 games and were CAA tournament runners-up twice. And while she knew the X’s and O’s of lacrosse, she had to do a lot of learning on the job when it came to having the personality of a college head coach.

“I know how to get people going. I know how to refocus people and get them serious again. I was the team ham, so refocusing was important for me to be able to do.”

— Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe “I’m, by nature, a non-confrontational type of person,” she explained. “I think that being the head coach and not being able to satisfy people all the time, having to say no to people at times, having to create a certain level of structure within your program, those were things that were hard for me. I like people to like me, I’m a pleaser, I want to please people.”

In 2002, however, JMU, where Klaes-Bawcombe honed her craft and started her coaching career, passed her over for their vacant head coaching position, choosing to go with a candidate with less experience. That choice brought out the fire and intensity that Klaes-Bawcombe was known for. “I was an alumna of the program, I wanted the job,” she said. “I got an interview, but I didn’t get an 6

June/July 2018

Shelley Klaes-Bawcombe (right) talks with senior attacker Kristen Gaudian between practice drills.

on-campus interview. So, at that point, I decided that I was going to build Hofstra up to be better than JMU and prove to them that they made a mistake.”

She racked 41 of her 50 Hofstra wins over the next four years, and when the chosen coach left JMU in 2006, Klaes-Bawcombe made sure she wasn’t passed over again. “When I had the opportunity to go for the job the second time, I wanted them to understand how much this mattered to me,” she said. “I was the right person for this job. I think that they understood that I would probably put more into this job than anybody else.”

She was brought back to JMU in 2006 and the rest, as they say, is history — literally. Klaes-Bawcombe set the mark for wins by a JMU coach on Feb. 25, 2017, with a 15-4 win over High Point University, passing McDonough as JMU’s winningest lacrosse coach with 119 wins. Her teams have won five CAA titles and have gone to six NCAA tournaments. As of May 21, the team is 20-1 and are playing in their second NCAA Final Four in school history, and the first under Klaes-Bawcombe.

If you ask Klaes-Bawcombe what has made her teams so successful and her successful as a coach, however, she points to a quality she’s been blessed with her whole life. “I know how to get people going,” she said. “I know how to refocus people and get them serious again.

I was the team ham, so refocusing was important for me to be able to do.”

It’s also her attitude of creating a winning environment, on and off the field, that’s had such an impact on her players. “Shelley really puts a lot of time and effort into developing each player on our team,” said senior Haley Warden. “She wants to build up each player so when they’re done with lacrosse, they’re just a better person.”

Warden’s teammate, senior Rebecca Tooker, echoed Warden’s sentiments. “She tries to build us up outside of just being the athletes that we are,” she said. “She really cares about our academics and our fitness. She’s a well rounded person and she hopes that we are well rounded, too.”

What it all boils down to is that JMU is home for KlaesBawcombe. Her husband, Andrew, is a JMU alumnus and the couple

“Shelley really puts a lot of time and effort into developing each player on our team. She wants to build up each player so when they’re done with lacrosse, they’re just a better person.”

— Haley Warden is raising two kids, Otis, born in 2008, and Maya Ann, born in 2012, in the Harrisonburg area. And yeah, she’s had other coaching offers, including Big 10 powerhouse Ohio State University and Pac-12 juggernaut University of Southern California. But this is where she wants to be. It’s where she’s made a name for herself and where she knows she’s loved and supported by the community.

“JMU has fought for me, and that feels good,” she said. “I could retire here, [and] again, it’s because this place offers me what I’m looking for. I can accomplish my professional goals, I can compete for conference championships. I can compete for national championships. But I can also have a quality of life outside of the job where I’m a normal person, and I’m not just a lacrosse coach. I’m a mom, you know, and a member of the community. It feels good.”

—Bloom Magazine

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your HOME

Master Gardeners Showcase Their Yards

By Shelby Mertens

Daniel Lin

T

Above: Janet and David Wendelken’s garden is a stop on the upcoming Gardens in Bloom tour.

Right: A butterfly settles on an aster blossom in Jennifer Cottrell’s garden. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Cottrell

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June/July 2018

hree local Master Gardeners will open up their gardens for those hoping to find some inspiration.

The Central Shenandoah Valley Master Gardeners Association’s fourth annual Gardens in Bloom tour will take place on Saturday, June 9, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The gardens selected for this year’s tour are located in Lakewood, Preston Heights and north Harrisonburg.

“By opening three different yards, you get to see a lot of variety in what the gardener wants to plant, what they cultivate, what they take care of, how they design and how they grow their plants,” said Janet Wendelken, one of the Master Gardeners showing this year. “It’s just wonderful that Master Gardeners are willing to open their homes and their gardens to show them off so that people can learn. You always find a plant you like.”

Wendelken’s garden in the Lakewood subdivision is called “Into the Blue” due to her and her husband David’s affinity for the color. Some of the garden’s blue items include a vintage ornamental bicycle, a ceramic urn and blue annuals and perennials.

Wendelken said her garden is filled with hundreds of different species of flowers and plants, including hostas,

azaleas, daylilies, rhododendrons, crepe myrtles, roses, heucheras and hydrangeas, along with native species such as toothwort, violets, wild geraniums, spiderwort and woodland poppies. She is also planting a vegetable garden.

The property is a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat. “We have a very biodiverse garden,” Wendelken said. “We don’t use any pesticides. ... My husband is a birder and we like the chipmunks, the squirrels, the birds, the butterflies and the dragonflies and all the natural critters that would come into our yard. We welcome them and wouldn’t want to do anything that would harm them.”

While hundreds of flowers fill the Wendelkens’ front yard, the backyard features a wraparound deck, a patio and a fire pit. The side of the property has a 55-foot-long water feature with a stream, two ponds and three waterfalls. The yard also features a dry-stacked stone wall, a gazebo and a flagstone path.

David Wendleken, a Master Naturalist, built all of those garden features.

The garden also serves as an official Monarch Butterfly Waystation, providing milkweed and nectar to attract the butterflies.

Wendelken once raised over

100 Monarch butterflies from the larva stage to the pupa stage in her kitchen.

The Wendelken’s home was built in 1994 and the garden has been changing consistently ever since, because as Wendelken said, a Master Gardener’s work is never complete. “I don’t think you’re ever finished,” she said.

“Probably up until the day people come into our garden, we’ll still be working on it. … When you garden, it’s always changing, you’re always doing something new, you’re always adding, you’re taking away, you’re trimming, so it’s a process.”

Wendelken, a Master Gardener since 2015, hopes she can use her expertise to inspire other gardeners. “I hope they find something in our garden that they maybe want to know more about,” she said. “I’m hoping they’ll come into the garden and just enjoy it.”

Master Gardener Jennifer Cottrell will show off her garden, “Meditation Meadow” in Preston Heights, for the tour. Cottrell started transforming her front yard into a native meadow in 2014.

“About 90 percent of the plants are native to the Shenandoah Valley,” Cottrell said. “It’s basically laid out in an infinity symbol, so you can meander in a figureeight and then you can go through two shade gardens and an edible garden [that has] vegetables, raspberries, blueberries and herbs.”

The Buddha statues tucked in different places throughout the meadow add to the meditative and peaceful ambiance of the yard. “I’ve been collecting [Buddhas] for probably 20 years or more,” said Cottrell, a Master Gardener since 2015.

There are six areas of the yard that guests will tour. Native plants in the meadow include woodland petunias, ironweed, Virginia bluebells, woodland asters, boneset and a variety of native grasses. The color scheme of the plants is purple, blue, silver and white.

While the vast majority of Cottrell’s plants are native species, she does have a few non-native species, such as lavender, white woodruff and creeping thyme. Cottrell said she prefers native plants because they’re low maintenance and don’t require as much watering.

Cottrell doesn’t use any fertilizers, and instead uses sustainable gardening practices, such as mulch made from recycled wood chips and the use of rain barrels for minimal watering.

Cottrell hopes to show the public that you don’t need a big yard in order to have a garden, and to inspire folks to explore more environmentally-friendly practices to support native plants and wildlife.

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ABOVE: Irises frame a view of the pond in Elizabeth Neff’s garden.

TOP RIGHT: Geraniums bloom in Janet Wendelken’s garden.

Elizabeth and Bill Neff. The four-season perennial garden wraps around the home, built in 2005, with flowers all year overlooking scenic views of the Shenandoah Valley.

“Mine is a perennial garden. It is primarily in the sun, but I do have a shade [garden],” said Elizabeth Neff, a Master Gardener since 2013. “I have a pond [at the bottom of the hill] and a waterfall, so there is a water feature.”

Neff uses native plants as much as possible. Some of the species in her garden include bearded irises, creeping geranium, butterfly bushes and black-eyed susans, as well as a Lady Jane Magnolia tree, serviceberry trees and evergreens, which make for a colorful garden.

“I just try to plant things that are pleasing to me,” she said. “I have purples, yellows, oranges and reds. It’s a broad spectrum. … I like all the different variations.”

Neff started her garden when her house was built in 2006. She recently began 10

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experimenting with layering plants and groundcovers.

Layering plants involves planting flowers at different heights, Neff said. “It’s so the garden isn’t just flat,” she said. “There are architectural elements to the garden.”

Groundcovers snuff out the weeds in a yard, which makes the garden require less mulching. “It’s easier to maintain,” Neff said. “It’s letting nature take its course.”

Neff, the self-described “farm girl who loves to play in the soil and get [her] hands dirty,” wants garden tour participants to see that gardening is all about trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn’t work. “Your garden will tell you what it wants to be, and you have to go along for the ride,” she said. “There are a lot of mistakes that you can make, and some that turn out really well. Gardening is working with nature and letting nature take the lead.”

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June/July 2018

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