Seniors reveal their favorite JMU memories
From pranks to blizzards, graduates will never forget their time here
By Meghan Patrick, contributing writer
Posted on April 24, 2006

On May 6 they will hold their diplomas in their hands, throw their hats in the air and look back over the past four years — or maybe longer for some — at the memories they’ve created.

For senior Leah Baugh, her favorite JMU memory dates back to freshman year.

“My friend Joanna and I decided to pull a prank on my roommate Sarah, who worked the late-night shift at Lakeside Express on Friday nights,” said Baugh. “One night when she was gone, we decided to entirely switch around the room.”

Baugh took everything — posters, computers, clothes in the dressers, stickers on the closets, bed sheets and the contents of both of their desks and swapped it all so it was completely the same, but mirrored on the opposite side. Baugh and her friend got the assistance of five other girls in the hall to join the fun and help move everything. They added a final touch to the prank by bringing Joanna’s bed and bunking it on Sarah’s.

“When Sarah came back in she looked scared out of her mind. We were all just sitting on the bed, cracking up and crying,” Baugh said. “We ended up keeping Joanna’s bed there, and she became our third roommate until the end of the semester.”

Alumni weekend 2005 is the source of one of senior Aaron Reilly’s favorite memories.

Reilly was at Forest Hills early in the morning with a bunch of friends when he found an abandoned grill nearby.

He waited about an hour for the owner of the grill to return, but when no one did, Reilly went over to check it out. “The grill was lit and ready and there was burger meat, buns and all the fixings set out,” Reilly said. “They were going to go bad, so I started cooking.”

For two hours Reilly cooked burgers for his friends and their neighbors. “There was no shortage of people who wanted one,” said Reilly. “I’d like to think that the owner of the grill and burgers got one, but I really have no idea.”

One of senior Lacey Rainwater’s fondest college memories is from a run-in with the Harrisonburg Police Department one Friday night during her freshman year.

Rainwater and her friend decided to stay in and hang out for the night. At 1 a.m., they went to move her friend’s car closer to her residence hall, and in the process, pulled out in front of a police car.

“She got a little flustered, so she turned into the next entrance she saw, which ended up being a one-way exit,” Rainwater said. “The cop ended up pulling us over for driving the wrong way, lights flashing and everything.”

Rainwater said it was definitely a bonding experience. “I had my digital camera on me, so like a typical camera-happy freshman, I took pictures of the whole thing,” she said. “We laugh about it a lot now.”

A lot of favorite memories for JMU seniors are the “little, funny things you end up doing with your closest friends,” Rainwater said.

Senior Thalia O’Hearn’s best memory dates back to a blizzard that occurred during the winter of her freshman year.

“My friend Aaron and I stayed up until 6 a.m. playing in the snow. We stole a table from the Potomac Hall study lounge and used it to build a ramp over by ISAT,” O’Hearn  said.

Said Reilly, “Ordering Dave’s Taverna delivery from about a hundred feet away, going to parties with live bands, eating at The Little Grill and El Jalisco and just hanging out with good people are only a few but important things that made my time at JMU so fun.”