Rob Van Winkle: Master Craftsman and (N)Ice, (N)Ice Guy

Rob Van Winkle and his construction posse on-site in Ohio's Amish Country. Photo copyright 2013 Denice Rovira Hazlett, all rights reserved.

I had the privilege of spending some time on-set of DIY Network's Vanilla Ice Goes Amish, to premiere in late 2013 or early 2014. Rob Van Winkle, AKA Vanilla Ice, spent several weeks in Ohio's Amish Country working alongside some of the world's finest craftsmen. Take a peek at the piece here and see what Van Winkle's experience among the Amish was like. 

No Joshin'. Krajcik's LP, Blindly, Lonely, Lovely, a Keeper.

He has a smile as huge and disarming as his voice and, since we’re talking about Josh Krajcik here, that’s saying a lot. 

Fans from the Northeast Ohio area were able to experience both that great big grin and voluminous voice firsthand on Wednesday, April 3 at Best Buy on The Strip in North Canton as the Wooster-raised rock star celebrated the release of his full-length album, Blindly, Lonely, Lovely with an acoustic mini-concert and autograph session. 

The album, recorded in London and Los Angeles, gets its name from Krajcik’s experience making the album and his hope for the final product. 

“Mostly I went into the studio with a clean slate,” Krajcik said during a recent interview for Larry’s Music Center in Wooster. “It’s sort of why the record’s called Blindly, Lonely, Lovely. If people have an imagination, they have a preconception of what it’s like to make a record, that everything’s laid out for you. In my case, I was in London, alone for the first time, and in L.A. kind of on my own.” 

Krajcik says he spent a lot of time alone in those big, unfamiliar cities, and felt much like he was jumping blindly into a massive project with people he didn’t know, apart from those he loved. The loneliness was temporary, though, and what he came away with was something very lovely, an album packed with talent, thanks to Krajcik and an all-start cast of co-writers, musicians and producers. Rolling Stone listed the album #6 out of the 10 most-anticipated albums of 2013, alongside musical giants like Arcade Fire, U2 and Pearl Jam. Hear, Hear! said, “Blindly, Lonely, Lovely showcases Krajcik’s “blues-tinged growl over larger-than-life arrangements which accentuate his ability to merge blues, rock and pop, all within a slick package.” Billboard called the April 2 release “a soulful R&B record, chock full of horns, strings and Krajcik’s rich supple vocals enveloping words of love. His warm tone and earnest delivery also weaves in elements of jazz.”

That combination makes for an album sure to appeal to a wide variety of listeners, evidenced by the cross section of folks crowded just to the right of the store’s door at Wednesday’s performance and signing event. 

Pat Walpole of East Canton, CD in hand, eagerly waited to hear Krajcik perform. During season one of The X-Factor, she watched Krajcik’s journey from audition right up to the finale when Krajcik was named runner-up, finally getting the world exposure he’d worked so hard to achieve. 

“We even made a trip to Wooster and saw everything the town was doing to support him,” Walpole said. “We were hoping so much he was going to get first place. He went far and did well. He has such a unique sound and his voice is just great.”

Just a few feet from Walpole, two teenagers from Perry Local Schools, Rachel Cherry, 12, and Jadah Vincent, 13, clutched their Krajcik CDs. Like Walpole, Cherry and her mother, Denise Cherry, rooted for Krajcik to win from the very beginning. Denise Cherry attended Wooster City Schools, so she first watched because she had heard a Wooster native was going to be on. She kept watching because she was amazed by how good the singer was. 

Emily Dieringer, a freshman at Triway High School, didn’t just hear about Krajcik’s voice before the show. As a student of Krajcik’s stepfather, Bill Pim, she got to hear and meet Krajcik himself as he crooned At Last during a surprise visit to her math class just before wowing the rest of the world with the same song. Dieringer was at Best Buy with her mom, Kelly Dieringer and friends Amy Hall and her children Kyle and Makenna, all of Wooster, and all fans of the singer. 

“Our husbands used to watch Josh at Seattle’s coffeehouse back in 2005,” Amy Hall said. She said she remembers thinking, This kid is just so talented. “Anytime my husband knew he was going to be at some local establishment, he went to it.”

Krajcik sang several songs from Blindly, Lonely, Lovely and then treated the crowd to a repeat performance of At Last, the song that first earned him international recognition. He signed autographs and took photos with every fan who turned out and stood in long lines snaking through the aisles of the electronics store. He handed out hugs, heard stories of adoration and devotion and, of course, gifted fan after adoring fan with that huge Josh Krajcik grin.

Find Blindly, Lonely, Lovely on iTunes, where it currently sits solidly at #Nine on the Top Rock Albums list. Tickets for Krajcik’s June 8 show at the Wayne County Fairgrounds can be purchased in the secretary’s office or by phone during office hours, Monday-Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday, from 9 a.m. to noon. Call 330-262-8001 for details.

Caught in the Wake: Daniel Wenzel's Joyce collection

“You’ll either hate it, or it will consume you.”

For Daniel Wenzel, a bookseller living just outside of Killbuck, one book has very nearly consumed not only him, but also, by association and love, his business partner and wife, Leslie McKelley. 

Walk into the couple’s solid-panel yurt (think a hobbit house nestled into the woods instead of a hillside), and you’re met with Wenzel’s library, inhabiting a sizable portion of the dwelling’s 735 square (or, as McKelley says, “round”) feet. Nearly 600 of those books are centered around one subject-- in fact, one book--James Joyce’s cyclical, idiosyncratic enigma, Finnegans Wake. And lest you hasten to cry “TYPO!” rest assured; Joyce left out the apostrophe intentionally. If you want to know why, there’s probably an entire book about it. And if there is, Wenzel can likely tell you how to find it. 

That’s because Daniel Wenzel falls into the category of one who has been consumed by the Wake, as it’s known, the Irish author’s final work, first published in its entirety in 1939. 

But Wenzel wasn’t always a fan, or, as the book’s scholars are dubbed a Wakian. It took years for him to appreciate the book he had picked up and put down several times. As with many things, it started with a bit of sibling rivalry with Wenzel’s older brother, Paul Wenzel. 

“I idolized and hated him at the same time,” Wenzel says. “He was better in sports and always finding new music and books. He told me about Joyce’s Ulysses when I was a sophomore in high school, said it was difficult but he enjoyed it.” 

Later, one of Wenzel’s teachers at Walsh College, the late Brother Joseph Power, professor of English Language and Literature who studied at St. Catherine’s College, Oxford, under J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, assigned students to read a piece from Dubliners, Joyce’s 1914 collection of short stories. The tale was Araby, a glimpse into the mind of a young boy faced with disappointment after his idealistic view of love and location are destroyed. 

“Something about that story struck home,” Wenzel says. “So I read the rest of Dubliners and eventually moved on to Ulysses.”

Wenzel thought that might prepare him for the Wake, so he picked it up. And didn’t understand a word of it.

Wenzel isn’t the only one. The Wake is touted as one of the most difficult books to read, filled with wordplay, concocted languages, sentence fragments and dreams within dreams. Take, for example, this line from the first page:

“The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy.”

If you need an interpretation for that huge string of letters in the middle, have no fear. It’s the sound of thunder, and there’s an entire book on that subject alone: The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, by Eric McLuhan. Wenzel owns it.

Eventually, though, Wenzel did read the Wake. When asked how long it took, he says about six months. McKelley disagrees. 

“He has never stopped,” she says, which actually rings true. As if on a mission to unlock its mystery, Wenzel began collecting all things Joyce, and then, because yurt space is at a premium, sharpened his focus, narrowing it down further and further to just Finnegans Wake, eventually amassing a collection of nearly 800 books on the topic. 

That collection was reduced by about 140 titles recently when Wenzel and McKelley hand-delivered a portion of Wenzel’s personal collection to Aedin Clements, Irish Studies Librarian and head of rare books and special collections at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame. Clements says, in her lovely Irish lilt, that the library attracts people from all over who want to study Irish fiction and will spend a week or two researching in that collection alone. 

The delivery came about after a university professor asked Clements to purchase one of a 63-volume set titled Finnegans Wake. Book 2, Chapter 2: a facsimile of drafts, typescripts and proofs. Vol. 2. One of only 250 published. A nearly impossible task.

Until she found Wenzel. 

“I’d located a description on AbeBooks and called about it,” Clements says. “I expected to have to explain exactly what I wanted, but Daniel confirmed without having to check. ‘I happen to know Finnegans Wake,’ he said.”

“She was dumbfounded that I actually had what she was looking for,” Wenzel remembers. “I was dumbfounded that Notre Dame didn’t have the James Joyce archives.”

That first exchange back in 2009 led to the purchase of not just that volume, but half of the set. In January of this year, the remaining volumes plus 140 titles from Wenzel’s personal collection also found a new home at Hesburgh Libraries, including one specialized piece titled ?amsolookly kersse?: Clothing in Finnegans Wake. 

It was kind of hard for Wenzel to let go, but he knew it was time. 

“After 20 years, I was getting somewhat tired of the chase,” Wenzel says. “My wish list had shrunk from page-after-page to 30-40 items.”

So Wenzel and McKelley packed up the treasures and trekked to Notre Dame. 

“Over the seven years I’ve been here, I can name the large collections I’ve bought, and Daniel’s is definitely one of them,” Clements says. “Daniel has taken us in a very good step towards having the best print collection on Joyce we can have.”

Wenzel is delighted that the books are in good hands. 

“They went where they needed to be,” Wenzel says. “From sitting on a shelf in a yurt in Holmes County to where people can see and study them.”

And just like the never-ending cycle of Finnegans Wake, that portion of Wenzel’s book collection will live on and on.

“They’re in a better place,” Wenzel says, a place where they will be read and studied by those who, like Wenzel, have been consumed by one of the most beloved and confusing pieces of literature in the world.

Going to Gulu

In some ways, Miriam Yoder is just like any typical Holmes County girl. The bright-eyed 20-year-old is into snowboarding, softball, and photography. She hangs out with her boyfriend and loves her family. And when she talks about the airline ticket she just bought, you can see the excitement. She’s like a teen ready to vacation in Sarasota.

But Yoder is not your typical young adult. While she’s heading to warmer weather, she won’t be on vacation. In January, Yoder will venture to Gulu, a city in northern Uganda, Africa that, for 20 years, was held hostage by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army, killing and kidnapping thousands of Gulu’s Acholi people, forcing children to serve as soldiers, and driving millions out of their homes. The town, Yoder says, is recuperating from that era, but access to clean water, medical treatment and basic necessities makes it a slow recovery. War, poverty and AIDS, have left thousands of children without family, home, and with very little hope. 

Yoder showed a photo she took when last in Uganda, a snapshot of five kids in tattered clothing, begging for a sip from her water bottle. Many in the area have no access to clean water unless they’re very wealthy. They walk to their drinking water source, where they wash their clothes and their bodies and water their animals. Those five kids, she says, just wanted a drink of clean water. 

“But how could I possibly choose which I would give my bottle to?” Yoder says. “People here can’t relate. We’re so used to turning on the faucet and there’s water, or using a toilet with water, instead of going in a hole in the ground.”

The first time Yoder traveled to Africa, she was 19. She’d been working full time as hostess at the Farmstead Restaurant in Berlin. She knew she’d have no work in winter, when tourism in Holmes County slows to a trickle. She didn’t want to sit around, she says, and do nothing. She had a heart for missions, which she’d had a taste of with short-term trips to Costa Rica, New York City and North Carolina through her church, Grace Mennonite in Berlin. But she felt there was something more tugging at her this time. Something bigger. 

“I was raised Amish, one of seven children, and I’d lived in Charm my whole life,” says Yoder, daughter of Barb and James Yoder. The family left the Amish church when Miriam was six. “For me, it was more of a chance to grow up, see the world, get outside of Holmes County. I wanted to change things up and see what’s out there, other than horses and buggies.”

Yoder had friends who’d served with Watoto Childcare Ministries. Knowing she wanted to work with children, Yoder wanted to spend three months working in a babies’ home, where abandoned infants are given the love and care they need to grow into healthy children and future leaders. Yoder didn’t tell anyone of her plan--not her parents, siblings, co-workers or friends. She simply filled out the online application and waited anxiously. She was ecstatic to get word of her approval. Others--not so much. 

“I knew I was going to experience negativity,” Yoder says. “People didn’t understand why I wanted to go to Africa when there were needs right here in Holmes County. But in Gulu, they don’t have neighbors to help them, like we do, because their neighbors are just like them.”

Because pregnant women in Gulu are often abandoned and unable to get jobs, they, in turn, abandon their babies. If the babies are lucky, they go to orphanages and babies’ homes. While Yoder was serving with Watoto, she cared for babies found in a toilet, pulled out of a dumpster, and dragged in by a dog. These are the lucky ones, the ones who will receive care until age three and raised by carefully selected African women who will oversee their education and upbringing.

Being in Uganda was hard for Yoder. She was 19, far from home, and away from her family and boyfriend, Lavern Yoder, during the holidays. She had a close call with a van while riding on a boda-boda, or motorbike taxi, and another when a friend unwittingly saved her from an imminent mugging.

“It was terrifying,” Yoder says, remembering the boda-boda incident. “I thought that was it. But God was with me through my whole trip.”

Yoder also found it challenging caring for infants and toddlers day after day, feeding, changing and bathing them at all hours. Once her time in Uganda was over, she felt fairly sure she’d never go back. But then, the day before Thanksgiving this year, she knew it was time. 

“It’s amazing how God has changed my heart,” she says. “I want to go back next year, and the next, and the next. I want to see things change and grow there.”

Yoder now holds two tickets to Uganda--one for herself and one for older brother Joe Yoder. Together, they will travel to Gulu on Jan. 10, this time spending three weeks working with pastor George Jabulani of Gulu Community Church. 

“Our goal is to do as much outreach in the community as possible,” Yoder says. “Whatever God puts in our way, that’s what we’ll do.”

Yoder believes that if every individual would do one kind act to bless someone else, they’d be so overwhelmed with joy, they’d want to do it again. 

“I want people to realize there’s more to this life than self,” Yoder says. “People are dying every day because they don’t have food and water, or moms or dads to care for them. 

“We have wealthy people here,” Yoder continues. “We’re supposed to help the widows, children and orphans, and I think God wants to use this community.” 

Yoder points to the photo of the barely-dressed children begging for water. 

“Why don’t we help them? Why don’t we give them a chance?” she asks. “That’s what I want. I want this community to rise up and make a difference.”

Yoder insists it wouldn’t take much.

“My heart was telling me to love these children, so I went,” she says. “You don’t have to change the world; you just have to start with one person at a time, and then they’ll bless others.”

If you’d like to support Miriam Yoder’s trip, send your contribution, noted “Miriam Yoder, Africa Trip,” to Grace Mennonite Church, 5850 County Road 77, Millersburg 44654.

A Presidency Fit for a King

As Christmas draws near, one event has become an important tradition for Dr. David King, his wife, Winnie Lowrie King, and the families of their two grown children, Justin and Lindsey. That tradition takes place in the heart of Philadelphia, not far from where Dr. King served in various capacities at Eastern University for 21 years, most recently as provost. Now, as the 13th president of Canton’s Malone University, traveling back to Philadelphia gives Dr. King a chance to not only celebrate with family and enjoy holiday festivities, but to also take part in that annual tradition--an afternoon performance of Handel’s Messiah by the Philadelphia Orchestra. It’s a high point of preparation and celebration, Dr. King says, that really encourages one’s mind toward Christmas.

The music for Messiah was written in 1741 by German composer George Frideric Handel whose oratorios spurred undergraduate students to sell their own furniture for the five-shilling tickets. And while people readily connect Handel to Messiah, not many know Charles Jennens, the wealthy 40-year-old art patron who tossed in considerable cash for every Handel composition from 1725 onward. Jennens also conceived of and compiled the entire text of Messiah, presenting it to Handel, who composed music for what is now one of the world’s most beloved and widely performed choral pieces. In other words, the success of Handel’s Messiah is largely due to support that remains mostly behind-the-scenes. 

Dr. David King understands that kind of strong, unwavering support. As a 1973 graduate of Central Christian School (CCS) in Kidron, Dr. King credits the two years he spent there as some of the most profound and formative, thanks to an ensemble of folks who welcomed him.

Dr. King spent his elementary years as one of Dorothy (Miller) and Eldon King’s five children, growing up in Trail and Walnut Creek while his father pastored Walnut Creek Mennonite Church before moving his family to West Liberty to pastor Oak Grove Mennonite Church. During his junior year, Dr. King followed in his older brothers’ footsteps, becoming a boarding student at Central Christian School. He made his home with Amos and Velma Amstutz just a couple of miles north of Kidron. Dr. King quickly rattles off names of his favorite teachers--Delvin Nussbaum, Laurel Horst, Sherman Eberly, Ernie Martin, and Marion Bontrager--people who not only taught Bible and history and basketball and physical education, but had a passion for learning and a love for Christ and humanity. And then, there was Edna Ressler, who, Dr. King says, made a point of watching out for him. 

“I always felt that if I needed to talk to someone, I could go to Edna,” Dr. King says. “I was away from home, off to high school the way most go off to college, but at age 16. She was always warm, hospitable, encouraging and supportive--there the way any parent would be.”

But one of Dr. King’s most formative experiences came from his classmates. It’s not easy, at 16, joining a tight-knit group of 40 students who have spent most of their childhood together. Dr. King, a self-described quiet kid, could easily have felt alienated. But not only did his class welcome him, whether shooting hoops or hanging out eating burgers at Dravenstott’s in Orrville, his fellow students also made him class treasurer. That, paired with Marion Bontrager’s personal development course taught during mini-term, and interaction with passionate, caring teachers, provided a setting that helped bring Dr. King where he is today. 

“In hindsight, I can see the genesis of my path was that experience at Central,” King says. “They not only accepted me; they invited me to lead.” 

That leadership was more fully developed after college, when King became director of Human Resources at Eastern University in St. David, Pa. Transitioning to university presidency was less a career decision than it was discovering that in Christian higher education, he could flourish in ways he’d never imagined. 

“Over time, I began to sense a calling of leadership moving me to Malone,” Dr. King says. “I thoroughly enjoyed my role in human resources, and that’s how I saw myself, but others were seeing a broader leadership. 

“If you would have said 10 years ago that I would be anywhere as university president, I’d have rolled my eyes and said, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’” King laughs. “I had this standard, typical, narrow idea that I was on a path, and that, to grow, I needed to continue in the same role, but at a larger university.”

What Dr. King realized, however, is that he was called to remain in a smaller university. What needed to grow was his willingness to be flexible. 

“I’ve learned that one of our chief tasks is to be available,” Dr. King says. “To be available to His still-small voice and His leading, to be willing to be surprised in terms of how He desires to use us.” 

Once he began seeking presidency, it didn’t take Dr. King long to see that Malone University was an excellent fit.

“Who I was, having grown out of the Mennonite church, out of a spiritual and faith tradition, with who I was and how I was being called,” Dr. King says, “aligned closely with who Malone saw herself to be, with her character and ethos.”

While he and Winnie have largely attended nondenominational churches, Dr. King’s Mennonite roots and influences have defined much of who he is today. 

“As I’ve matured in life,” Dr. King says, “I’ve discovered that my Mennonite heritage is, in the best way, a significant element in my sense of purpose and worldview.” 

He also credits his wife with a great measure of his success. 

“A major element of this journey has been my partnership with Winnie, her sense of calling and purpose,” Dr. King says. “Hardly anything would have happened the way it has without her support and encouragement.”

And so, like a beloved oratorio, Dr. King’s life has been beautifully orchestrated by a rich educational experience, encouraging mentors, a strong marriage partner, and the still small voice of one King speaking into the heart of another.

For more information about Malone University, visit malone.edu or call 800-521-1146.