Seventeen days after retiring from a 34-year career at EMU, Bonnie Bowser was out and about at the local ballpark on Thursday evening, catching up with campus coworkers, sporting her EMU ALUMNI cap, and excited to cheer on the home-team Harrisonburg Turks baseball squad. 

Bowser, former circulation & office manager for the Sadie Hartzler Library, and her husband, Henry, were among more than 70 EMU supporters who turned out at Veterans Memorial Park in Harrisonburg for the third annual EMU Night with the Turks baseball game. For her, the main draw was seeing familiar faces from the EMU community, more than the game itself.

“These people are my family,” she said, pointing to the others around her, decked out in EMU colors. “They’ve been family for 34 years.” 

EMU Night with the Turks is a popular event for fans of America’s pastime and EMU Royals of all ages to enjoy a summer evening at the ballpark, cheer on the home team, and show their Royal pride. Those who wore EMU apparel were granted free admission for the game. The first 50 fans who bought popcorn from the concession stand received it in a collectible EMU bucket. 

The Turks are part of the 12-team Valley Baseball League, a collegiate summer baseball league that features players from across the country. Thursday’s game featured a matchup between two South Division powerhouses: the first-place Turks and second-place Staunton Braves. The Turks got off to a quick start, scoring four runs in the first inning and three more over the next three frames. The Braves came roaring back with four runs but fell short, as the Turks won 7-4.

An EMU alumnus who regularly attends Turks games, Brian Enedy ’02, who earned a degree in recreation leadership and sports studies, appreciated the plentiful scoring and said Harrisonburg had a good shot at securing the top seed in the upcoming playoffs. “It’s fun to come out and watch the players from different schools,” he said. “You never know, some of them might make it to the major leagues someday, and you can say, ‘I saw them play here.’”

Channeling her inner softball slinger, EMU’s new interim president Rev. Dr. Shannon W. Dycus threw out the ceremonial first pitch, uncorking an arcing toss described by the announcer as an “underhand curve.” The pitch ambled across the plate right on target. 

Throughout the game, EMU’s mascot, Herm, and the Turks mascot, Gill, greeted fans and friends in the stands, competed in a footrace—Gill eked out the win by a beak’s length—and spread positivity and good sportsmanship.

Staff members from EMU’s marketing and communications department threw hats and fired shirts into the crowd, using a T-shirt cannon designed by EMU engineering grad Adam Stoltzfus ’25 with help from engineering lab tech Henry Bowser and funded by 2019 alumni Ben and Kayla Zook.��

EMU Night with the Turks also offered a chance for future Royals to meet Herm and others within the campus community. Friends and Buffalo Gap High School grads Karina Bondaruk and Leah Palmieri, who will be attending EMU as first-year students this fall, saw posts on the university’s official Instagram page—give it a follow —promoting the event and felt it would be a good way to connect with the community. “We just wanted to soak in the EMU atmosphere,” Palmieri said.

Melvin Felix, coach of the Royals men’s basketball team, and his wife brought their three young sons out to the ballpark for the game. “They’ve only been to little league tee-ball games,” he said, “so this is their first big league experience.”

With EMU Athletics back in action this semester, so too is the Royals Athlete of the Week award.

So far three of the five honorees are seniors, and their Q & A profiles are a great opportunity to hear more about how the pandemic has affected their athletics career, what they appreciate about their student-athlete experience, the lessons they’ve learned and their future plans.

The seniors include

• , point guard on the men’s basketball team from Forestville, Md. (awarded Feb. 3);
• , forward on the men’s basketball team from Woodbridge, Va. (Feb. 26);
• , defender on the women’s soccer team from Douglassville, Pa. (March 5).

Tim Jones

Read his and visit his .

In a pandemic-shortened career, Jones was near the top of the program leaderboard in points and assists. His Feb. 3 honor came after the season opener against Lynchburg, where he had 17 points, five rebounds and four steals, and notched his second career double double by racking up 10 assists.

“As a senior and team captain, Tim leads our team every day on and off the court,:” said Head Coach Melvin Felix. “His hard work really showed against Lynchburg by helping us come back and getting in that game not only with his scoring but more importantly by getting everyone else involved, and getting 10 assists. When he is a dual threat with scoring and passing we are a much better team.”

Jones is a business administration major, with minors in recreational leadership and sports studies and marketing. He hopes to pursue more opportunities to play basketball before entering the workforce.

“I learned that I have the ability to adapt in any situation or environment,” he said in his profile. “I have also learned to appreciate life and the freedoms of life. Lastly, compassion for others is one of life’s greatest gifts.”

D.J. Hill

Read his and visit his .

Hill’s honor came after a tough two-point loss to Emory and Henry. The senior would end the night with 18 total points and grabbed 11 rebounds to help the Royals. 

“DJ as a player is so important for our team on both ends of the floor,” Felix said. “He gives everything every time he steps on the floor. That showed in his performance on the road at E&H, not only did he have to guard their best player all game but he also allowed us to dominate the paint with his scoring and rebounding.”

Hill is a liberal arts major with a business concentration and a business administration minor. He hopes to work in information technology with the U.S. government after graduation.

In his profile, Hill gives credit to several special people for inspiration through this season, including his mother, his grandmother, a former teammate and a former coach, and also “Mrs. Bonnie,” from the EMU dining hall.

Megan Breidigan

Read her and visit her .

A four-year starter as defender, Breidigan has helped the Royals earn 18 shutouts over her career. She enters this season as a co-captain with fellow senior Rachel Sauder. In the team’s season opener against a talented Bridgewater College team, Megan played her role well, communicating with a young roster and shutting down the Eagles’ best offensive player. She was awarded the Athlete of the Week honor on March 5.

“Megan did an outstanding job in her first game back after a 482-day layoff due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Head Coach Ted Erickson. “For her to command the back line, to play that sharp, with a freshman goalkeeper behind her as well as the opponent being an NCAA Tournament level team was impressive. I was proud of Megan and the team for not giving up after Bridgewater scored the early goal. Megan has been an outstanding role model, captain, teammate, and friend to all of her teammates and she will be missed next fall.”

Breidigan, a secondary English education major with a psychology minor, talks about what she learned from being on cross-cultural in Guatemala last semester during the pandemic.

She completed her student teaching in fall 2020, all online, and plans to be a middle school teacher and coach in the future.

You might think college students, and especially busy athletes, would groan at the prospect of their coach assigning additional reading. Not so for this year’s EMU Runnin’ Royals men’s basketball team.

In addition to classwork, practices and game preparation, the teammates make the short trek to read with Waterman Elementary School students every two weeks. They work with kindergarteners through fourth graders in 11 different classrooms.

“It sure puts smiles on their faces to see you there,” says Tim Jones, a junior business administration major from Forestville, Maryland. “I think it really shows the kids that people outside their school care about them and they know that. They tell us they’re excited for us to come.”

In teacher Lauren Smith’s first-grade classroom, Jones takes one of four stations. Students rotate at 15-minute intervals, so he eventually sees all the students in the class. For free reading time, Jones says there’s “a bunch of books to pick from, but most of the time, they all pick the same book to read.” Before winter break, that meant Jones had nearly memorized the popular choice, No, David!, by David Shannon, about a little boy who is always breaking the rules. 

Jones says his favorite book growing up was the Dr. Seuss classic, Green Eggs and Ham.

Kobi Alexander remembers devouring Salt in His Shoes: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of His Dream, co-authored by the basketball star’s mother, Deloris, and sister Roslyn.

“It’s about hard work and staying dedicated to your goals,” Alexander said of the book’s memorable themes. He thinks reading with kids shows that he values reading himself, especially for the way it grows one’s vocabulary and “allows you to see things from multiple perspectives.”

Alexander, a sophomore business administration major from Madison, Virginia, has worked with children on the basketball court but not in the classroom. “This is all about helping people and caring for people and inspiring them,” he said. “It’s been a blessing to play college basketball so giving back to the community and putting smiles on kids’ faces is really rewarding.”

For the record, the popular book among his students, at least in December, was any choice from a series involving Elephant and Piggie.

The Reading Royals program began this year under head coach Melvin Felix, who spent time at Waterman Elementary School while earning his master’s degree. There, he received a warm reception from administrators, teachers and students. 

“They were excited to see males as role models, and that was something I wanted my student-athletes to experience,” Felix said. “My main goal is to have them understand they are role models, even if they think they’re not or if they have no experience in that role. Kids will look up to them and I wanted my guys to experience that and have a positive influence in our community.”

The relationship has grown beyond reading time, with the EMU student-athletes being invited to class celebrations and Waterman students coming to home games to see their Reading Royals in action.

“It’s really grown into what I hoped it would be, so I hope we can continue it,” Felix said.

In his spare time, Felix reads books about basketball, lately Toughness by Jay Bilas; The Last Season by Phil Jackson; and The Miracle of St. Anthony’s: A Season with Coach Bob Hurley and Basketball’s Most Improbable Dynasty, by Adrian Wojnarowski.

And assistant coach Bill Hale? He’s dipping into Scrimmage For War: A Story of Pearl Harbor, Football, and World War II, by Bill McWilliams.