It’s hard for Kaleb Wyse ’10 to pinpoint exactly what drew him to EMU.

Sure, he had plenty of connections to the school. His older sister and two cousins are EMU alumni. A graduate of Iowa Mennonite School (now known as Hillcrest Academy), Wyse said he isn’t sure what it was about EMU. He just liked it more than the other schools he visited.

“I felt more at home at EMU than anywhere else,” he said. “It just felt like the right campus for me.”

Wyse is a content creator who shares delicious recipes, gardening tips and home decor projects with more than a million followers through his , and various social media platforms, all under the “Wyse Guide” handle. The culinary entrepreneur majored in accounting and business administration at EMU, where he gained the skills needed to build his brand. It’s also where he met his business partner and college friend, Joel Kratzer ’10.

The two EMU grads launched their passion project in 2012. They maintained the website as a “night and weekend thing,” Wyse said, while working regular jobs. About seven years into their venture, the site started to take off. Wyse said he shifted in his approach, serving up more authentic content with stories personal to his life. “Then, when COVID hit,” he added, “everyone was looking for help with gardening, preserving, and cooking or baking at home.” Wyse and Kratzer began working on the site full time in 2021. Today, their multimedia company is comprised of a team of six.

Wyse said his time at EMU taught him to be more open and honest with others. He pointed to his intercultural program, a three-week voyage to Greece and Turkey led by Dr. Linford Stutzman ’84, SEM ’90, as a pivotal experience. Packed into close quarters with other students he didn’t know well, Wyse found that the trip offered him a crash course in forming new connections. “That trip is something I think about a lot,” he said. 

EMU’s small class sizes helped him thrive as a student. “I could walk into my professors’ offices and talk to them instead of a teaching assistant,” Wyse said. “I’m someone who needs personal connection and having that at EMU really supported me. I didn’t feel like I was just a number.”

Another advantage of attending EMU is the wealth of scholarships accessible to students. Wyse received the Horace & Elizabeth Longacre Business Scholarship during his four years as a Royal. He remembers writing thank-you cards to the Longacre family and feeling a personal connection to them through the award, which is named in honor of a philanthropic couple from southeastern Pennsylvania who were staunch supporters of EMU. 

“The fact that someone believed it was important for me to receive a good education at a great school was both impactful and humbling,” Wyse said.

His debut cookbook, There’s Always Room at the Table, is now a New York Times’ bestseller. The collection of recipes and stories was published by HarperCollins earlier this month and is at online retailers.

This isn’t the first time EMU News has covered his exploits. Wyse landed a one-day cohosting gig on The Rachael Ray Show in 2015. In 2021, he returned to campus during EMU Homecoming and Family Weekend as a featured speaker for the annual TenTalks event.

Wyse is the fourth generation to live on his family farm in southeast Iowa. Follow him at:

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Read the previous profiles in our A Royal Tale series:

The virtual brainchild of 2010 graduates Kaleb Wyse and Joel Kratzer, “” is an amalgamation of  culinary, decorating, building and gardening tutorials. Above all else, the blog strives to portray beautiful and timeless ways to live and entertain – such as an apple pie made by Wyse and showcased, gorgeously, in film by Kratzer.

That 60-second video, created for Rachel Ray’s “” competition, earned Wyse a one-day co-hosting gig on “The Rachael Ray Show.” [Watch Ray and cohorts call Wyse to tell him he’s won .]

Wyse was featured on the , simmering made-from-scratch caramel, cracking jokes with the talk show hostess, and learning trade secrets from .]

“The day was a whirlwind,” says Wyse. “The staff and producers were unbelievable, so kind and friendly. It was amazing seeing behind the scenes, what goes into a show and how it is created.”

Winning creativity early on

The Gray Boxwood’s creators have been a high-achieving team since their college days. when they teamed up with another student to present the winning business plan at the Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) annual business simulation competition in 2008.

Both Kratzer and Wyse went on to accounting careers after graduation – Kratzer in Los Angeles and Wyse in Iowa. (Kratzer earned his masters in accounting from James Madison University.) However, neither found the corporate workplace fulfilling.

“While I so appreciated the education I received and value the accounting classes I took, I knew that I was not created to be an accountant,” says Wyse. “Honestly, I think EMU helped me come to that realization. Classes and professors, especially Leah Kratz and Ron Stolzfus, focused not only on core curriculum, but also on being passionate  about God and finding the place He created for us in this world.”

Seeking that passion led Wyse back to skills and values of his rural Iowa childhood. “Growing up, I learned to value the land and value food. We always grew most of our food, preserved through canning, freezing and fermenting anything we could and eat the preserved goods throughout the winter.”

Where his parents saw family resources, Wyse saw opportunities for experimentation. He and Kratzer decided to start a blog together – and in the face of distance and an unclear vision, The Gray Boxwood was born in 2012.

‘Creative outlet’

When posts about cheese plates and end-of-summer parties were not “getting across what either of us wanted or hoped to convey,” explains Wyse, “we saw the push for YouTube and felt compelled to make videos.”

Kratzer eventually left Los Angeles for Iowa, where he continues to work as a CPA in addition to being site designer, videographer and editor to Wyse’s home-and-hearth content. He learned cinematography and editing through trial and error.

Several jars of canned green beans, seasoned-themed playlists, Easter centerpieces, and monkey-bread recipes later, and the duo is still “tweaking how we create, format, and design,” says Wyse, who also gets real-time practice in freelancing his interior design, wedding planning, catering and landscape skills to local clients.

“I love the challenge of discovering what works and what doesn’t,” says Kratzer. “I get my energy through our evolution.”

Beyond the modest goal of increasing their audience, the two have “over-the-top dreams” of cookbooks and television programs. For both creators, though, the blog continues to be an exploratory, creative outlet and a reflection of their natural talents.

“Filming our videos, setting the videography settings, and editing our content gives me an opportunity to really delve into the details, which is the space in which I thrive,” Kratzer says.

“I have felt closest to God through my work with The Gray Boxwood, also have felt my largest struggles learning to trust and let things be in His timing. . . I am still learning that!” says Wyse.

So realistic, in fact, that Ashley Hevener, Kaleb Wyse and Joel Kratzer were selected as the top team for their presentation made at the annual convention of Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) held Nov. 6-9, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio.

EMU junior business students (l. to r.) Joel Kratzer, Kaleb Wyse and Ashley Hevener were selected as top presenters of a business case simulation at the recent MEDA convention. Photo by Jim Bishop

All three are junior accounting and business administration majors at EMU. Ms. Hevener is from Hutchinson, Kan.; Wyse from Wayland, Iowa; and Kratzer from Kidron, Ohio.

Two EMU teams were among five – three from Goshen (Ind.) College – who worked on the same business scenario and recommended solutions to the problem. The other team of EMU business students in the competition were seniors Sam Buck, Woodburn, Ore.; Matt Gehman, Parkesburg, Pa.; and Ben Moyer, Doylestown, Pa.

The business case focused on a child care facility in Toledo, Ohio, that was struggling to stay afloat fiscally while also wanting to achieve greater visibility in the community, the students explained.

The students were given the problem prior to attending the convention, but weren’t permitted to seek counsel from any EMU business professor.

“Our challenge was to study the business, determine what the obstacles and barriers were and come up with a feasible solution to the day care facility’s dilemma,” Wyse said.

“Being accounting majors, we focused on budget issues and crunched figures,” said Ms. Hevener. “We reworked the program’s budget, adding health coverage and recommending continuing education for staff,” she added.

The students also addressed the issue of “branding” – helping the facility sharpen its image – by creating public relations materials that outlined goals and services.

Each team had about 20 minutes to make its presentation and then entertain questions from the audience. The sessions were open to everyone attending the MEDA convention.

The students believe their presentation received top honors “because the marketing materials we developed made us stand out.”

All three students felt the experience was “invaluable.”

“This exercise involved some presenting techniques that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have learned,” Hevener said.

“Presenting in this venue is different than doing so in a college classroom,” Wyse said. “The observers are already in the work world.”

“I feel like I gained a new sense of differing ways to address a business problem and work at a practical solution,” Wyse added.

Not only that, but each student received $100 for being named the top presenters.

“Competitions like these are extremely valuable by providing students with problems like those they’ll face upon leaving the university,” said Walter W. (Walt) Surratt, assistant professor of business at EMU. “They learn the value of critical thinking and exercise the tools they have learned in the classroom environment. They also learn to present their ideas and defend their positions before people they don’t know, building confidence and self-assurance in remarkable ways,” he added.

MEDA, founded in 1953, has a dual thrust of promoting business-oriented solutions to poverty and encouraging a Christian witness in business. It is a global leader in microfinance, village-level agriculture and investment fund development, improving livelihoods for hundreds of thousands of impoverished people every year.