A pioneering coach, co-athletic director, and professor at EMU in the 1960s and ’70s—and the youngest daughter of John R. Mumaw, EMU’s fourth president from 1948-65—Miriam “Mim” Mumaw ’61, of Arlington, Virginia, passed away on Dec. 5, 2025.

During her tenure at EMU (then known as Eastern Mennonite College or EMC), Mumaw coached the school’s first women’s basketball (1966-75), women’s volleyball (1968-79), and field hockey (1970) teams. She achieved the most success with the volleyball team, winning a state championship over James Madison University in 1973 and posting a perfect 21-0 season in 1976. Her overall record with the squad stands at 151-99. Mumaw was inducted into the in 2002. Only three other coaches share that distinction.

Those who were fortunate enough to cross paths with Mumaw, either on EMU’s campus or at Washington Community Fellowship (WCF), describe her as a people person who greeted everyone she met with warmth. They speak highly of her meticulous attention to detail, which shone brightly in her volunteer service to WCF and in her career at Gammon & Grange Law Offices, where she worked for more than 40 years. They also remember her for her love of baseball, particularly the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals, and her generosity in sharing her season tickets with others.

Mumaw was a beloved mentor, leader, and friend, known by many for her deep commitment to EMU and her congregation.

“She was a titan, a fierce advocate for women in athletics and for EMU in general,” said Carrie S Bert, the first woman to serve as EMU athletics director.

Dave King ’76, EMU’s athletics director for 17 years before Bert, agreed. 

“Mim advocated for the expansion of women’s sports at a time when that wasn’t supported by many in the institution, including her father who had been president of the college,” said King. 

During one of her visits to the EMU Athletics Suite, Bert recalled, Mumaw had shared with her how her father, likely reflecting the feelings of the wider church, had opposed the growth in women’s physical activities at EMU. “Mim just laughed and said, ‘Well, that wasn’t going to stop me … we just had to agree not to talk about it,’” shared Bert. 

“Mim was always so encouraging of me, both in words of affirmation and in the wonderful way she would squeeze my hand while we chatted,” Bert said. “I could feel her positivity and enduring support in those moments.”

King told the that he first met Mumaw when he arrived as a student in 1972, but “had no idea of the trailblazer she was and the impact she had on women’s sports” until he returned as director of athletics in 2005. “Besides coaching women’s sports and teaching PE classes, her involvement with the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) exposed EMC athletics to the broader collegiate athletic community and elevated the EMC sports programs,” King said.

Growing up in a glass bowl

Mumaw was born on Jan. 14, 1938, in Harrisonburg, the youngest of five daughters, to John R. and Esther Mosemann Mumaw. She was 10 years old when her father, a professor and ordained minister, took office as president, succeeding John L. Stauffer. He would serve in that role for the next 17 years.

“That was an important part of her growing up,” said Byron Peachey, a nephew of Mumaw and longtime EMU staff member. “She lived down the road on College Avenue and EMC was an even smaller community than it is now. Everybody knew everybody else’s business. And so for her and her four older sisters, there was a spotlight on them and a set of higher expectations for what they did and how they conducted themselves.”

Mumaw graduated from EMU in 1961 with a degree in business education. She then taught business education classes at Iowa Mennonite School for four years.

“That would’ve been an opportunity for her to spread her wings, outside of this glass bowl at EMU where everybody knew her,” Peachey said.

In 1964, while Mumaw was in Iowa, her mother died “very suddenly,” Peachey said. She returned to Harrisonburg to care for her father (in 1965, he married Evelyn King, former dean of women for EMU, and resigned as president).

Hired by EMU’s fifth president (1965-80) Myron S. Augsburger, Mumaw coached the school’s first women’s intercollegiate athletic teams, including women’s basketball, volleyball, and field hockey. 

“That was groundbreaking for EMC,” Peachey said. “She was a real innovator. ‘Trailblazer’ is an overused word, but she truly was one.”

In 1968, after completing her master’s degree at the University of Iowa, Mumaw began teaching accounting and physical education courses at EMU. She also served as co-athletic director and co-chair of the physical education department.

Sandy Brownscombe, coach of EMU women’s basketball (1978-89), field hockey (1978-93), and men’s volleyball (1991-98) also in the Hall of Honor, said that Mumaw held significant roles at the state, regional, and national levels within the AIAW, which governed women’s college athletics before the NCAA took over in the 1980s.

“Mim was a foundational figure for women’s athletics in Virginia through the AIAW,” Brownscombe said. “She started volleyball in the state of Virginia.”

A life of balance

Brownscombe was finishing her master’s degree coursework at Washington State University in 1978 when she was hired to teach physical education classes and coach the field hockey and women’s basketball teams at EMU. Mumaw interviewed her for the job, and was tasked with finding a place for her to live.

“There weren’t any apartments available,” said Brownscombe, “and so that’s how I ended up sharing her house with her that first year I was here.”

“That was, in my opinion, probably the best thing that ever happened to me,” she added, “because we spent many nights talking with each other, and she would explain to me what it meant to be a Mennonite female athlete. At that point, I was the first non-Mennonite full-time faculty member at EMU, so it really was my introduction to Mennonites and to EMC, and she shared that whole faith experience with me. She was like a big sister to me.”

Less than a full year later, in 1979, Mumaw left for a sabbatical year in D.C. at The Fellowship Foundation. It led to her permanent move to the area.

“She felt like she had taken EMU athletics to the next stage,” Brownscombe said.

“EMU women’s sports experienced much success in the 1980s, which I believe was a direct result of Mim’s commitment to developing and expanding sports activities for women,” said King.

Mumaw was a founding member of , a Christ-centered faith community started by President Emeritus Augsburger (its first pastor) and his wife, Esther, in 1981 and affiliated with Mennonite Church USA. Mumaw was an active member of WCF for 43 years and served in many roles, including as presiding deacon, elder, and on the Finance, Human Resources, and Building committees.

“Any time students from WCF were attending EMU, Mim always made sure I knew about it,” said Tim Swartzendruber, senior regional advancement director for EMU. “She was an admissions ambassador for us, no question.”

In 1982, Mumaw began a long career at Gammon & Grange Law Offices in Tyson’s Corner, where she served as accountant, office manager, and assistant to senior partner. She worked at the firm for more than 40 years.

She often returned to EMU and continued to love and support the university. She served on the EMU Board of Trustees from 1988-96.

“When I think of Mim, I think of balance,” Brownscombe said. “Her whole life was balanced. She was great as a coach, administrator, teacher, and yet she was so involved in the church, in leadership there, and in her care for people. She was one of those well-rounded people who had it all together.”

“She was always positive, always optimistic,” shared Peachey. “She wanted sports to be fun for young women and for it to be a team experience. I think that was an important value she cultivated, that student-athletes experience team success rather than individual excellence.”

Clockwise from front center: Miriam “Mim” Mumaw ’61, Liz Chase Driver ’86, David Driver ’85, former Orioles player Larry Sheets ’83, and Stephanie Rheinheimer ’13 attend an Orioles baseball game in August 2022. Sheets told writer David Driver for the Augusta Free Press: “Mim was, first and foremost, a wonderful Christian woman, a huge fan of EMU, and a huge supporter of my career and then my son’s (Gavin Sheets’) career.” (Photo courtesy of David Driver/AFP)

A connector of people

A devoted fan of the Orioles and Nationals, Mumaw was known to invite family, friends, and anyone else within her orbit to baseball games. While there, she recorded the action with a pencil and paper scorecard. “It was in her DNA to keep track of details,” Peachey said.

As a student, David Driver ’85, former Weather Vane sports editor, narrowly missed the window when Mumaw was on campus. But he and his family became acquainted with her as longtime members of WCF beginning in the late 1980s.

“She was never one to talk about the role she played as a pioneer for women’s athletics at EMU, but her love of sports was contagious,” said Driver. “I’m happy to say she made WCF a church with a lot of baseball fans.”

“I know that Carrie Bert benefited greatly from having Mim as a mentor,” Driver added. “Without Mim, there may not have been a Carrie as the first woman to serve as EMU athletics director.”

Long after leaving EMU, Mumaw continued to invest in its mission and its students. According to Swartzendruber, Mumaw included EMU in her estate plans, directing support to two funds established by her parents: the Esther Mosemann Mumaw Memorial Endowed Scholarship, which benefits upperclasswomen of any major, and the John R. Mumaw Endowed Scholarship, which benefits teacher education students.

In 2018, Mumaw coordinated a fundraising effort among past and present members of WCF to increase the ongoing student impact of the Myron S. and Esther K. Augsburger Endowed Scholarship for Urban Ministry. The scholarship, valued at more than $400,000, benefits students at Eastern Mennonite Seminary who plan to serve in an urban setting. 

“Mim tried her hardest to attend every alumni gathering, homecoming, you name it,” Swartzendruber said. “She adored EMU. I always got the impression that EMU felt like home to her.”

In addition to her parents, Mumaw was preceded in death by her four sisters: Helen Peachey, Grace Mumaw, Catherine Mumaw, and Lois Martin. She is survived by six nieces and nephews, and many beloved great-nieces and great-nephews. 

“She was a single woman, never had children, never married, and so she created a community around her,” Peachey said. “She knew lots of people in lots of different walks of life. When she went to baseball games, people noticed how all the attendants knew her. She knew them all by name. She was always looking for ways to connect people together.”

Thanks to Simone Horst, special collections librarian, for providing the archival images of Mumaw included in this story.

Progress was considerably slower on the retirement home, though, and it was not for another 37 years – long enough for EMU’s first rosy-cheeked students to go gray themselves – that the Virginia Mennonite Home (VMH) opened on the far side of Park Woods in 1954. Giving EMU a few decades to get its programs up and running was handy in the sense that the new home had a local talent pool to draw from. Dr. Merle Eshleman ’29 split his time as a physician between VMH, EMU and a nearby private practice, while Elizabeth Showalter Martin ’30 was one of the first nurses on its staff. A public address system in the original brick building (since torn down) piped programs from the college out to the residents. A full accounting of the tangled, back-and-forth relationship between EMU and VMRC in those early days would fill books.

When VMH opened, it was the first modern retirement home in the area. With that accomplished, its leaders soon began thinking about ways to keep ahead of the curve. To this end, in 1974 the board of directors asked John R. Mumaw – EMU’s president from 1948 to 1965 – to lead a strategic planning study. Mumaw’s approach was thorough, lasting more than three years, and included tours of other retirement homes as far away as Denmark.

One of the major recommendations in the resulting report was finding ways to make life at VMH seem as normal and non-hospital-like as possible (it is not coincidental that the Virginia Mennonite Home became the cozier-sounding Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, or VMRC, in 1978).

Realizing that vision for familiar, comfortable care has been a process in the gradual making ever since. It took a major step forward in the spring of 2013, when VMRC opened Virginia’s first Green House® homes, based on a model pioneered in 2003 in Mississippi as a way to care for residents in a setting as home-like as possible. In each of these three new homes, together known as VMRC’s Woodland Park community, about 10 people live together, sharing their meals, their time and, as they are able, their chores, with each other and staff who provide round-the-clock, full nursing care.

Another need highlighted in Mumaw’s report was for affordable housing for the elderly. Within a few years, VMRC broke ground on Heritage Haven, with substantial funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Completed in 1981, it remains the area’s only federally subsidized housing in a retirement community.

Today, around 730 people live at VMRC, making it the largest of the three major retirement communities in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County. Think about the math for a second (the combined city-county population is in excess of 125,000 people) and the following fact isn’t nearly as surprising as it might first sound: only 10 percent of adults in this country ever move to a retirement community. With an eye toward future growth and continuing to meet the needs of the aging, serving the 90 percent who won’t ever actually move to VMRC is something the organization “really has a mission for,” said Regina Schweitzer ’78, MBA ’06, vice-president for residential living.*

Of note, only a third of VMRC residents are from a Mennonite background, a ratio that’s more or less held constant since the beginning. This is indicative of VMRC’s long-standing intention to serve the entire community, according to president and CEO Judith Reitz Trumbo ’82.

Indoor walkways run between most of the biggest buildings, including a central “Main Street” corridor where one can eat at the café, transact at the bank, go to a doctor’s appointment (the physician’s office at VMRC, a partnership with the Harrisonburg Community Health Center is unique to local retirement homes), tinker in the woodshop and shop at the canteen – commuting by indoor taxi if walking isn’t an option.

“I enjoy that part – that everyone’s connected,” said Shawn Printz, MBA ’04, vice-president for support services at the retirement community.

Connections. A full accounting of today’s tangled, back-and-forth relationship between EMU and VMRC would fill even more books. Park Woods is a melting pot, a perfect place for a stroll, with paths leading to VMRC on two sides and openings toward EMU properties on the other two sides. The Wellness Center at VMRC gets heavy use from EMU faculty and staff. The EMU cafeteria represents a nearby dining destination for people who live at VMRC, who also turn out by the busload for basketball games in Yoder Arena. A steady stream of student interns and volunteers flows from the college to the retirement home. A steady stream of people flows, over a longer timescale of human life and aging, from employment at EMU to retirement at VMRC, a stone’s throw to the north. Alumni who work at VMRC regularly rub shoulders with professors who taught them years or decades earlier.

Home runs from EMU’s baseball field rain down toward the backside of Park Place (damages caused but rarely), the building just beyond the left field wall. There was once an old gentleman from VMRC who made it his habit to collect these balls, and when he died, the family passed along the box full of baseballs they found in his apartment to Les Helmuth ’78, executive director of the VMRC Foundation. Well aware of EMU’s budget-conscious approach to extracurriculars, and life in general, Helmuth delivered the box back to the athletics department. Things between them go around, come around.

— Andrew Jenner ’04

* First Choice Home Health, a home healthcare business that VMRC co-owns with the Church of the Brethren-affiliated Bridgewater Retirement Community, is one way VMRC has been serving this mission to the area’s 90-percenters.

Catherine Mumaw

Catherine R. Mumaw, a 1954 EMU graduate and veteran educator from Corvallis, Ore., and a former Harrisonburg, Va., resident, received EMU’s 2006 “alumna of the year” award during the Sunday morning worship service of homecoming and family weekend.

The award is presented annually to a graduate who has been recognized for significant achievements in their profession, community or church.

of Lansdale, Pa., a fellow member of the graduating class of 1954, received the “distinguished service award,” also during the homecoming service.

The annual “distinguished service” award seeks to recognize graduates who have demonstrated in notable ways the Christian service and peacemaking emphases of the university.

Catherine R. Mumaw, alumna of the year

Dr. Mumaw, a home economics graduate of EMU, returned to teach courses in that discipline at her alma mater, 1957-74. She earned a master’s degree in 1958 and a PhD in 1967 from Penn State University.

She was professor and chair of the home economics department at Goshen (IN) College, 1974-86, and served as associate professor in the Human Development and Family Studies department at Oregon State University, 1987-95.

Through OSU, she helped Bunda College of Agriculture in Malawi update their home economics and human nutrition programs and took part in a faculty exchange program with Avinashilingam Deemed University in India.

Mumaw retired early from OSU to work in Nepal. From 1995-99, through Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), she was an education adviser for Kathmandu University School of Education. There, she and her colleagues worked to improve education especially in Nepal’s primary schools.

While in Nepal, she served twice as a technical adviser for the Asia-Pacific region of the Food and Agricultural Organization, which developed distance education programs for rural women in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

In retirement, Mumaw keeps up with international friends, sings in a church choir, does amateur photography, serves on the International Federation of Home Economics’ Congress Committee that is preparing for its hundredth anniversary meeting in 2008 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Having traveled to all the major continents and over 40 different countries, she has embarked on a new journey – as a newlywed. She married Clair Basinger of Harrisonburg, Va., on Oct. 14, 2005.

Mumaw is a daughter of the late John R. Mumaw, who was president of EMU 1948-65.

Claude Good

Claude Good, distinguished service award

Good and his wife, Alice Longenecker Good, also a member of the class of 1954, lived among the Triqui Indians in Mexico for 25 years while translating the New Testament into their language.

With intestinal worms a major medical problem among the children they served, Good looked for ways to treat malnutrition caused by roundworms that can devour 25-30 percent of the food eaten by a child each day.

His investigations resulted in the “Worm Project” (), a medical treatment that, for about two cents a pill, can eradicate most parasitic worms in a child for up to six months.

“We hope to have at least 12 million pills distributed by the end of 2006 in about 70 countries,” Good noted, adding a wish that his receiving the “distinguished service award” will “help publicize something that the world truly needs.”

As part of his work with the Worm Project, Good frequently addresses groups who might contribute financially; these audiences sometimes include school-age groups. His soft and easy manner, as well as his general appearances, has resulted in his being dubbed “Mr. Rodgers.”

Good continues to work with international students from the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University, connecting them with families and churches in the Philadelphia area. He also has an international scripture ministry in the Souderton (PA) Mennonite Church where he and his wife are members.