I’ve spent most of the last 50 years living in Harrisonburg, Va.; this essay is a tribute to Harrisonburg-based Myron Augsburger, who passed away in October 2026. When I began my undergraduate studies in 1976, Augsburger was the college president. In the late 1970s, we pulled pranks on campus, sometimes on the girls in Northlawn dorm or on guys on different dorm floors, and occasionally in chapel.

The good-natured fun on campus in 1980, my junior year in college, reflected a strong sense of community among the 1,014 undergraduates. During Myron and Esther Augsburger’s final chapel in May 1980, with Lehman Auditorium packed, students gave the Augsburgers a chance to prank us. It was great fun.

During my last three years as an undergraduate, my father, Elmer S. Yoder, served on the school’s board of directors (1979-1992). I graduated in 1981 but returned to study at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in Harrisonburg in 1987. I nearly completed the M.Div. degree, but a history and Bible teaching position opened at Eastern Mennonite High School, and I got the job. During my 33 years of teaching at EMHS (1989-2021), I often used the EMU Hartzler Library archives and the library’s extensive historical collections.

In the 1980s, I followed Myron and Esther Augsburger’s careers as they established Washington Community Fellowship. From 1997 to 2000, Myron was the lead pastor at Zion Mennonite Church, 9 miles from EMU, where my family and I attended. Myron baptized our oldest son, and our rapid-fire, Anabaptist-grounded preaching pastor inspired me to grow as a disciple of Christ. I knew Myron’s convictions included an openness to the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit, which I shared, and I read Augsburger’s articles and a slim book entitled Practicing the Presence of the Spirit.

I departed Eastern Mennonite High School in 2021 to co-author People of Peace: A History of the Virginia Mennonite Conference. During four years of research and writing (2021 to 2024), I often worked in the EMU Hartzler Library, which President Augsburger built while I attended high school in Ohio.

What gave me great joy in the library working on a book was getting to know a half dozen international undergraduate students from East Africa and the Middle East. They were often in the library when I was, and we chatted; on one occasion, they accepted my invitation to a meal at our home. They’ve graduated now, but I remember them, and to me they represented the continuities and the changes during my years of association with EMU.

I was delighted recently when a friend of the Augsburgers came to the Brethren & Mennonite Heritage Center in Harrisonburg, where I work, to purchase a copy of People of Peace: A History of the Virginia Mennonite Conference. Myron is indexed many times in the book, and I am glad he received a book before his passing. Myron’s wearing of the plain coat during most of his college presidency in deference to plain Mennonites, his urging of delegates at Nashville 2001, at the outset of MCUSA, to “be as fair to the people on the right as we seem to be to the people on the left,” and his conversations of encouragement with me over the years are legacies I will hold onto.