How many instruments do you play?

Well, I play many instruments, though I don't play all of them very well. Guitar is definitely my primary instrument. I also play a bit of mandolin and banjo. Back at Bluffton High School, I was quite an adept trumpeter, but my chops aren't nearly what they used to be. I've started to learn to play the drums recently; it is really fun to hit things and call it music.

What was the first one you played? How old? Did the Gundy family have its own band?

I first started playing piano, at my mother's urging, when I was five or six. I played piano for seven years and was becoming a decent player when I discovered the guitar. Since then, my piano playing has dropped off.

Though I can't say that we ever had a family band, I do remember performances with my parents over the years at various community and church functions.

Do you write your own music?

I do enjoy writing music. I've written a number of songs, ranging from choral pieces to fingerstyle guitar songs to folk songs. Though I never have time to write as much as I'd like, every now and again I find a melody in my head that I turn into a finished piece.

I understand that your band, Honeytown, is going to perform at the Bluffton Town Hall on Saturday night. Tell me about the band...how it got started, who is in it, where all you perform, what musicians influence you. Do you have an album out yet?

Wow, I could write a short version or a really long version of the band's history. I'll try to meet in the middle:

When I moved back to Ohio in 2007 and started teaching at Central Christian, I was hoping to get involved in some sort of music group. The choral director at the school, Tim Shue, invited me over to jam in his living room. A few months later we performed a song at a teacher convention's talent show with another new teacher, Maria Miller, who is a graduate of Bluffton University.

After a few smaller gigs, Tim invited our percussionist and accordion player, Kevin Himes, to come to a practice and then brought in Toby Hazlett to play bass. The band had five members for about a year and a half, until Maria moved to Columbus. Now that band has just been the four guys for a couple years.

We have performed at a huge variety of shows and for crowds ranging from 30 to 3,000. We've played at weddings, coffeehouses, company parties, churches, and even the Kent State Folk Festival. Two years ago, Honeytown was the adult worship band at the Mennonite Church USA convention in Columbus. We completed a week-long, 2300-mile tour this summer out to Tim's boyhood home in Kansas and back, performing seven concerts in seven days.

As a group, our influences are very eclectic-we play Americana, folk, hymn arrangements, old-time country, blues, and even straight-up rock-and-roll. We're often referred to as having a bluegrass influence. Though that is somewhat accurate, we are definitely not a bluegrass band, as any true bluegrasser would attest. I think we all enjoy different types of music and the energy of variety and so we try to vary our styles to keep ourselves excited. What is the point in just playing one type of music when there are so many options out there?

With such a diverse repertoire, it's hard to say which groups specifically influence us, though I know we all have a respect for John Prine, Bruce Cockburn, Neil Young, Gillian Welch, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

We just completed our first album in March of this year, titled Nobody's Fault but Mine. It is a collection of original songs, hymn arrangements, and even a few fiddle tunes thrown in for good measure. The title track is an old blues song that we do in four-part acapella. They are $12 each and we'll have them at the show Saturday night. You can also download it from iTunes or order one on cdbaby.com.

What was the first band you were a part of? How many different bands?

The first true band I was a part of was during high school and eventually came to be called Burd. It started with Phil Gratz and myself, but expanded to include many other Blufftonites, including my brother, Ben, Nathan Sommer, James Crawfis, and Karim Awad. I played with different groups that included all of those mentioned plus Matt Steinmetz, Josh Weaver, and Andy Edinger. We played at Common Grounds and had a wonderful time playing a Bluffton High School dance.

In college I played with groups here and there, but I was never really in a formal band. When I moved back to Ohio, I was excited at the opportunity of being in a band again.

You were in the BHS marching band. What about jazz band? What's your best high school band story?

Oh yes, I was definitely a member of the illustrious BHS marching band. I was always a trumpeter in band, though there were a couple ill-fated stints as a cymbal player for some large-group Solo and Ensemble performances. I played guitar and trumpet in jazz band and was even in the District III jazz band my senior year on guitar.

For a specific band story, it's hard to remember, because I think my brain has mixed them together into two categories: extreme heat at band camp and frigid cold and rain at playoff football games. I do remember the huge red raincoats that made the marching band look like a flock of penguins with intense sunburns. I just remember marching band being one of those wonderful, defining aspects of high school. Of course, it was probably more social than musical most of the time, but everything in high school is.

If you could perform with any living musician, who would it be?

The first one to come to mind would be John Prine and I usually try to stick with my first impression. His songwriting ability is amazing. I think my reasons are summed up in a song by the band, Over the Rhine. In a song of theirs called "If a Song Could Be President," they sing, "John Prine would run the FBI/All the criminals would laugh and cry/If a song could be president."

So...let's see, when did you graduate from BHS? What influenced your choice of colleges? What was your major?

I actually graduated in the big millennium year. 2000. I think some of my classmates still have their "Class of 2000" shirts that someone pushed us to buy when we were in second grade. That was a rather odd item to sell second graders.

When I was deciding on colleges, I was torn between Goshen and Conrad Grebel. Goshen would have been a great school and I could have played soccer and seen many of my high school friends. However, Conrad Grebel was a totally fresh start for me and was an opportunity to live in Canada, which piqued my sense of adventure. I loved all seven years I ended up spending in Ontario. I spent four years at Grebel (which is on the campus of The University of Waterloo) and finished up with a double-major honours degree in English Literature and Music. A few years later, I went to teachers' college at the University of Western Ontario and got my teaching degree in high school English and music.

Are you teaching now? What grade and subject(s)? What do you enjoy most about teaching at that level?

Yes, I've been teaching at Central Christian in Kidron, Ohio for over four years now. I mostly teach high school English, though I've taught everything from freshman gym to sixth grade Bible. I love teaching high school students--for all of their insecurities and irrational thought, they are also at the age where their brains are just beginning to deal with who they will be as adults.

Where did you and your wife meet? Is she a nurse? How did you end up in eastern Ohio?

I met Jess at Camp Friedenswald when I was 13, I think, and she was 11. We struck up a camp friendship and were actually pen pals for a number of years. After graduating high school, we reconnected at Friedenswald's music camp that year. Following that week, I worked up the courage to send her a letter expressing my interest in seeing her again. Lucky for me, she had similar feelings. The rest is history, as the saying goes.

Jess just finished up adding a long list of letters behind her name: she is now, officially, Jessica Witmer RN, MSN, FNP-BC. All of that means that she is a family nurse practitioner. She sees patients at a family practice in Orrville.

We moved to Orrville for a few reasons. The primary one was that I was finishing up my teaching degree and Central Christian offered me a job. Considering the market for teachers was and still is pretty dismal, I was ecstatic just to find a job. The other main reason for ending up here is that Jess grew up in Orrville and had family and other connections here.

When you return to Bluffton for visits, what is on your list of "must do"?

I usually try to go for a jog around town to see if anything major has changed. It is sometimes surprising how many things change when you haven't lived in a town for over ten years. The college's new buildings and the removal of some stoplights on Main Street are just a few of the changes that don't fit with my childhood mental picture of Bluffton. I still enjoy popping in to Common Grounds and seeing all of the familiar faces at First Mennonite Church. The little trail by the National Quarry is one of my favorite spots in town.

Tell me your favorite growing-up-in-Bluffton story. Who were the main characters?

It's hard to even begin to pick just one story. But here it goes. I actually just found a version of this story that I wrote in 7th grade.

In the early '90s, when the new Sauder Visual Arts Center was under construction, there were enormous piles of dirt from all of the terra forming taking place. It was sometime in the winter and we'd just had a bunch of rain, flooding the Riley and turning those piles of dirt into huge, man-devouring mud balls.

Somehow, my brothers and I, as well as some of the Luginbuhls (definitely Ben and Alison), found ourselves standing by the muddy water of the flood, right next to the mud mounds. My little brother, Joel, who was only about three at the time, ran into one of the mud piles and promptly got stuck. I went in after him and got sucked in up to my knees.

I don't remember all of the details, but my brother, Ben, ran home, opened the door, and yelled: "Come quick! Nathan and Joel are drowning in quick sand!" The mud was so gooey that our feet were totally stuck in it. My parents came and pulled us out-I'm pretty sure Joel lost most of his clothes in the mud-and we made it home safely. We had been told not to go down there, of course, so I seem to remember being grounded for a few days.

I hear you've recently completed a couple of marathons. You played soccer growing up, so when did you switch to running? How did the marathons go? Did you see Ann Alyanak at Columbus?

I never really switched to running, I just added it to my soccer addiction. I am still coaching JV soccer at Central and I play in adult leagues in my area. Soccer is still my favorite game.

The real impetus to my running was my dog, Sidney. He's a three-year-old boxer/shepherd mix and needs a lot of exercise to keep him happy. I've been running here and there for years, but something sparked in me last spring and I slowly started upping the mileage. When I ran eight miles one morning in June, I decided I needed a goal to train for. The Akron Marathon was about three months away, so I decided to go for it.

As I trained, Sid would run with me on all of my runs, and I'm pretty sure he is the most in-shape dog in Orrville at this point. When it was warm out, he'd have to stop at about 13 miles. Jess often bikes along with me on longer runs, which make them full-family affairs.

When I ran Akron, I was hoping for something between a 3:30 and a 3:35 finish: around 8 minutes per mile. In all my training, I had not done more than a 20-mile run, which is what the program I was following prescribed. I felt great until mile 22, then my body ran out of energy. I won't get into the science of it, but I recently learned that runners call it "bonking." I still finished at 3:35:09 and was happy that I was within nine seconds of my goal. The neatest thing is just how many people are both spectating and participating in these events-it really gives the runners motivation to keep going.

Columbus was only three weeks later, and I was amazed that it took me a full week to be able to run again after Akron. However, I got myself ready and beat my Akron time-3:30:36-which was exciting. I ran for a while with a fellow Blufftonite Matt Steinmetz and his brother-in-law, Sam Richardson, which probably wasn't the best idea, because they started the race really fast. Leah (Steinmetz) Richardson also ran the half marathon. I ran with the boys for a few miles and then realized I needed to slow down to keep my energy. I made it to mile 24 feeling great, then tired a bit for the last few miles. It was a great personal accomplishment to do two marathons in three weeks, and I'm hoping to do a few more next spring.

It wasn't until the next day that I realized that Ann Alyanak was the Ann Stechschulte I knew from high school! With her new name, I didn't know who she was, and I never saw her down there, with the thousands of people and the fact that she finished almost 50 minutes ahead of me! To win the marathon is a pretty amazing accomplishment for her.