by Jadyn Aldrich
Class of 2025
The Sherburne Ave. Coffee Shop at Crown College is perhaps the favorite spot on campus for students, staff, and faculty alike. Those who frequent enough, whether to study or feed caffeine addictions, have likely noticed two new faces behind the counter: the iconic mother and daughter-duo, Candace “Candy” (Schmidt) Franson and Jaci (Franson) Smith. But while these two may be quickly becoming coffee-shop favorites, their journeys at Crown actually began as students themselves.
Candy Franson graduated from Crown in the winter of 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration, and Jaci attained a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and middle school English in 2023. But Jaci is not the first legacy student in her family. Their family’s Crown lineage can be traced all the way back to Candy’s great grandmother, Laura (Linscheid) Friesen, a Crown alumna who started her time as a student in the late 1920s! In fact, one of Candy’s favorite professors while at Crown, Dr. Cramer (1951), had been roommates with her grandfather, Harry Owczarek (1951), when he was a student (a story Dr. Cramer loved to use to tease Harry’s relatives on the first day of class). For both Candy and Jaci, choosing a college was easy. “I knew since I was four that I wanted to come to Crown,” Jaci stated. But while a family legacy may have brought them to Crown, it was the community that led them to fall in love with it.
Besides Dr. Cramer, some of Candy’s favorite professors include Dr. Hardy (Emeriti, 2020) and her advisor, Dr. Jay Steele (Emeriti, 2015). Candy mentioned that the list went on. She also deeply appreciated her freshmen year mentor, Angie (Synstelien) Panza (1998). Angie had met her husband, Joe Panza, in the Crown chapel, and she used to say how she hoped that Candy would someday, respectively, “meet her Joe.” Well, her wish came true a year later when Candy did meet her future husband, also in the Crown chapel, and also named Joe (2003).
As a student, Candy says she enjoyed singing in choir and putting on student events as a member of the Student Activities Board. However, she admitted this was not her only creative outlet. One of her favorite Crown memories was when she and her friend, Kristen Baker (1999), pranked Candy’s roommate, Joanna Miller, by moving all the furniture from her room out to the Richardson lobby before Joanna returned from work.
Current Crown students may be familiar with some of Jaci’s own favorite professors, such as Dr. Henderson and Dr. Bouchard. One of Jaci’s all-time favorite classes was Dr. Bouchard’s poetry class. She too kept busy in her time as a student at Crown, serving on ResLife, Pact, and working at the reception desk. One of her favorite roles was on the admissions team. She loved the opportunity to conduct tours with prospective students and share Crown’s history, which having grown up around the campus, was in many ways intertwined with her own. One of Jaci’s favorite student memories was playing late-night card games in, fittingly, the coffee shop.
Both Candy and Jaci appreciated the opportunities they had as students to learn practical skills like networking and asking questions. They also appreciated the support they felt from the school, both in their time as students and afterward. Candy had a very quick turnaround in the months following her winter graduation, and by the time she walked in the spring, she was already pregnant with Jaci, whose name inspiration actually came from a classmate who walked alongside Candy at commencements, Jaci White (2000). When Candy returned as a Crown staff member not long after, she balanced the demands of a new job along with being a new wife and mother. But in that whirlwind of a transition, she found incredible and unexpected support from the staff and faculty. Candy shared how touched she was by those who walked alongside her and made the experience positive, so much so that her daughter Jaci would look forward to her own enrollment at Crown from such a young age. Both women found themselves part of a close-knit community. It “felt like I had family here” Candy said.
The spiritual formation and support system they built would become vital as they faced their greatest challenge ahead of them. Surrounded by other believers, they were able to receive emotional, social, and spiritual encouragement. The relationships they made with professors and classmates were integral to their faith development and to anchoring them in Truth. Jaci especially felt that her time at Crown helped prepare her to live out her faith in real-world scenarios, emphasizing application just as much as knowledge. Unfortunately, such a test would come before she even graduated. In 2020, Jaci’s sophomore year at Crown, she received devastating news; her dad, and Candy’s long-awaited “Joe,” had been diagnosed with terminal blood cancer. He was given only four months to live.
The news had come as a complete shock, and the family was given no hope for recovery since the cancer was untreatable. The COVID-19 pandemic made matters even more complicated. Jaci, a campus resident advisor at the time, was severely limited in how often she could visit home. Between quarantines and the increased risk of exposing her father to the virus, she was left mostly alone. In the time she needed her community most, she was the most physically isolated. At one point she was quarantined for three weeks straight. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done . . . I’ve never prayed harder in my life” Jaci said.
Candy, too, was devastated. She was grieving the diagnosis, missing Jaci, and still taking care of her younger children. “If I didn’t believe in God, I just don’t know how I could have gotten through that,” she said. But over and over, she was reminded that God had not abandoned her. She shared how it was in the absolute scariest moments that she would feel the presence of God in overwhelming, tangible ways. In the darkest moments, God was there. She never stopped praying. And then, the impossible happened.
In a miraculous answer to their prayers, Joe’s prognosis was reversed: instead of months, he was given decades to live.
Through this pain and uncertainty, God had faithfully brought their family through to the other side. Candy and Jaci shared that this has been by far the biggest way that they have seen God at work in their lives. They witnessed His supernatural answer to prayer and found that even in their greatest suffering, He never abandoned them. The reality of God’s power is something they are reminded of in every moment they enjoy with Joe Franson. Candy and Jaci reflected that life is characterized by different stages. Some of those stages will feel impossibly difficult. “Don’t allow that to not let you see what God’s doing,” Jaci says.
Fortunately for students, faculty, and staff, Candy and Jaci’s current phase has led them back to Crown, where they serve to brighten their days from behind the coffee counter. But, in this case, it is no mystery to see how God is using them to work in the lives of those around them. They shared that their favorite part of working in the coffee shop has been getting to truly know the people in the Crown community. Jaci loves finding classes and books she has had in common with current students, and Candy loves the opportunity to serve the student body, staff, and faculty in such a unique way.
Candy and Jaci’s stories serve as encouragement to not lose sight of God’s work in our lives. Their advice for new and incoming Crown students is to be intentional about getting involved in and embracing the community at Crown, as they did. Candy emphasizes the importance of “finding someone who listens,” whether it be a mentor or close friend. Jaci encourages students to embrace the growth and change that comes during college. They understand that not all of those changes are easy, but they encourage students to look for the positive. Candy and Jaci love when they get to have a hand in that and shared that seeing students’ smiles as they receive their favorite drinks is one of the highlights of their day. Their kindness reminds everyone to intentionally seek out goodness even in the little things. In a final statement, Jaci articulated what they both understand to be true: “You don’t serve coffee, you serve joy.”
