The dedication of the Heslep Amphitheatre and Morris Stage will take place Saturday, June 2, at 2:30 p.m., during UMW’s Reunion Weekend.

Built in the early 1900s off Sunken Road, behind Lee and Trinkle halls, the Amphitheatre has long been a favorite campus site, at varying times throughout history home to commencement exercises, outdoor study sessions, plays, concerts, even weddings.

The June 2 dedication marks the end of a meticulous renovation project to return the Amphitheatre to its historical glory and sustain its park-like setting, while increasing accessibility, upgrading infrastructure and enhancing flexibility.

Thanks to generous campaign gifts, the Heslep Amphitheatre has been named for Donald B. and Josephine McPherson Heslep, a 1956 Mary Washington graduate, and the Morris Stage for Marceline “Marcy” Weatherly Morris and Elmer “Juney” Morris Jr., both 1950 grads.

A search by Food Management magazine for America’s best sandwiches landed the Underground’s mouth-watering Turkey Pub Club in the national spotlight.

Campus and dining operations from around the country submitted sandwich entries. UMW’s Turkey Pub Club got prominent feature in the magazine this week.

Here’s what the article had to say about the sandwich:

“Heating things up has also worked well for the turkey pub club at the University of Mary Washington’s (UMW) retail location, the Underground. This sandwich has been the Underground’s top seller for seven years, accounting for about 40 percent of all sandwich sales there, with layers or roasted turkey, cheddar cheese and crispy bacon wrapped in naan and toasted until it’s GBD (golden brown and delicious).”

According to Rose Benedict, marketing manager for University of Mary Washington Dining Services:

“’When we were considering making some menu changes at the Underground, we did a survey to see what new foods students wanted added and which existing menu items they wanted to keep. Every student responding to the survey listed this sandwich as the one that must be included on any new menu.”

In case you missed it, a hashtag started by a rising sophomore at UMW went viral — and landed the student, Andrew Schneidawind, a mention in almost every major news outlet in the nation, including an interview on CNN’s headline news.

Here’s the story, which first ran on UMW’s home page:

UMW Student’s Tweet Heard Around the World

On Sunday afternoon, May 20, 18-year-old Andrew Schneidawind sat in his Arlington, Virginia, bedroom and looked at the two computer monitors in front of him.

Two days had passed since a Texas high school student opened fire on classmates, killing 10 and wounding more than a dozen, the latest in a string of mass shootings in America.

What, Schneidawind wondered, could he do to make a difference? He stared at his Twitter account. It would need to be provocative, he thought, if it was going to catch on. Then it came to him.

“I’m gonna try and get a hashtag trending called #IfIdieInASchoolShooting,” he typed. “If you wanna join, feel free.”

Then Schneidawind, who’d just finished his freshman year at the University of Mary Washington, typed out the things he’d never get to do if it happened to him.

“IfIdieInASchoolShooting, I will never be able to finish my animated TV series, I’ll never be able to see my sister again, and I will have to become a martyr. #NeverAgain,” he wrote to 150 followers. He settled in to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. Over the next three hours, Schneidawind watched nervously as the hashtag took off. Over the next three days, he was fielding interview requests from Teen Vogue to The Washington Post, and the hashtag had been used more than 50,000 times.

“I was just a small, aspiring activist,” Schneidawind told UMW four days later as he prepared for an afternoon interview on CNN.

“Now I’m always going to be known as the guy who started #IfIdieInASchoolShooting.”

Sandy Hook to Parkland

Schneidawind is not happy about that. To be known for a hashtag about dying in a school shooting is to acknowledge that people die in school shootings. Even if the statistical odds are exceedingly rare.

As he watched the likes on his Twitter post climb into the thousands, as he stepped into a Dunkin’ Donuts near the construction site in Arlington where he works a summer job to take phone call after phone call, his initial excitement waned.

“It hits you. You had to make [the hashtag] because of this problem. I wasn’t regretting it. But I wasn’t ever really happy I started it,” the communications and digital studies major said.

He can recall the deadliest mass shootings since Sandy Hook Elementary School, when a gunman killed 26, 20 of them children, in 2012.

Schneidawind was 12.

“I remember it all.”

He remembers the proposed gun legislation that later failed, including a bill that would have reinstated an expired 1994 assault weapons ban. He remembers the mass shootings that followed – Charleston, Orlando, Las Vegas. He watched it unfold on TV and computer screens.

When 17 people died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February, Schneidawind had had enough of watching.

“I went to Florida. It was important to me.”

He stayed for two days. “I always knew it was real. When I did see it, it was more real than I ever expected.”

Making waves

Three months later, there had been another school shooting – this time in Texas.

Even though he had followed the news of mass shootings in America since he was 12, Andrew Schneidawind said the February shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead changed him.

“It planted a seed. That seed has grown.”

Which is how he found himself sitting in front of his computer days after wrapping up his first year at Mary Washington, which he’d chosen for its proximity to home, for the prettiness of the campus and the pleasantness of the people.

“I was just a small puddle in the ocean,” he said.

Now he was making waves.

Jason Sellers, left, was named Friends of the Rappahannock Volunteer of the Year.

Dr. Jason Sellers, assistant professor of history and American studies at the University of Mary Washington, is the 2018 Volunteer of the Year for Fredericksburg-based Friends of the Rappahannock (FOR).

For the past two years, Sellers has served as faculty adviser for Life Along the Rappahannock, a collaborative oral history project between FOR and UMW. To date, Life Along the Rappahannock has completed six interviews and employed four UMW interns who logged hundreds of hours of service. Sellers supports FOR’s outreach events, interpretive trips, and buildings and grounds projects.

The Fitness Center will reopen May 21 with new summer hours.

The following summer hours are effective May 21 to June 22:

Monday through Friday: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays: Noon to 4 p.m.

The Fitness Center will be closed Monday, May 28 for Memorial Day.