In March 2025, Bridgewater College alumna Morgan Kimbrough ’20 suddenly started having trouble with her vision. While Kimbrough had worn glasses for nearsightedness since the fourth grade, this was different.
“I started to see spots in my vision, and then things got blurry,” she says.
She went to an optometrist, then an optic neurologist, but no one could figure out what was going on. By the end of April, Kimbrough, a history teacher at Staunton (Va.) High School, could barely read a computer screen and was no longer able to drive.
But Kimbrough says her students stepped up and helped her navigate the logistics of running a classroom for the rest of the semester.
“They showed me how to enlarge the text on the computer and would tell me who was coming in the room,” she says, getting a bit emotional at the memory. “They were being my eyes.”
Kimbrough says that those weeks and months were stressful and overwhelming as her doctors tried to identify the cause of her vision problems. But she drew strength from the support of her family and her school community. In mid-May, Kimbrough ended up spending five days in the hospital and came out with a life-altering diagnosis: multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disorder that causes damage to the protective sheaths that cover nerve fibers in the nervous system. The resulting disruptions in the communications between the brain and the rest of the body can result in problems with vision, muscle weakness, numbness and fatigue. While there is no cure, there are treatments that can slow the progress of the disease.
Once Kimbrough’s treatment protocol was put in place, she was released from the hospital to wait for her vision to (hopefully) improve. Stuck at home and unable to read or drive, she began baking. She started with sourdough bread, in part because she liked the challenge of getting it just right.
“A lot of baking is about touch and feel,” she explains. “As I kid, I was always cooking and baking and experimenting in the kitchen. My grandmother, Retha Kimbrough, was a baker and I spent a lot of time learning from her.”
Kimbrough spent the summer of 2025 perfecting her baking and began taking orders from family and friends. They encouraged her to sell her products more broadly and in early 2026, Fern + Flour Bakery was born.
It is a bright early June morning at the Waynesboro Farmers Market in downtown Waynesboro, Va. Kimbrough has set up her Fern + Flour Bakery tent on the east side of the market. Her sourdough breads—jalapeno cheddar, honey oat, rosemary olive oil—are displayed in wooden crates with her cinnamon rolls and brown butter chocolate chip cookies arranged neatly in bags on a lace tablecloth. On another table are baskets containing samples of Kimbrough’s sourdough breads.
Ari Orner, a Waynesboro resident, samples the rosemary olive oil bread and then purchases a loaf.
“It’s really good. I’m going to go home and make a sandwich with it,” Orner says.
Two other customers ask about Kimbrough’s jalapeno cheddar bread. They had come by the previous Saturday, but she had already sold out. This time they buy several loaves. (“It freezes great,” Kimbrough says.)
Fern + Flour Bakery has a steady flow of customers throughout the morning, and Kimbrough is grateful for the help of two assistants: her husband, fellow BC alumnus Keon Nesmith ’20 M’21, and her mother, Lisa Kimbrough. They take turns offering samples, collecting payment and answering questions about the baked goods.
Kimbrough and her husband met while they were students at BC in the late 2010s. She grew up in Bridgewater and attended college as a commuter student, majoring in history and political science. Kimbrough credits BC with exposing her to people and ideas different from the environment in which she had been raised, and with giving her the confidence to pursue a variety of interests.
“I loved the small college experience. The really strong sense of community allowed me to build myself as an individual,” she says. “I learned not to put myself in a box and was able to develop an identity outside of expectations.”
And today—with her vision restored, her MS under control and a thriving small business—Kimbrough is enjoying the fruits of her labor and the community that returns week after week for her sourdough bread and cookies.
“It is super satisfying to get the immediate feedback on my baking,” she says. “As a teacher it can take years to see the results of my work.”
But Kimbrough has no plans to quit her day job. She says she loves teaching and sharing her passion for history every day in the classroom. And wherever she goes, Kimbrough says that she loves creating supportive communities like the one she found at BC.
“I really like sharing the things I love with community. Whether it is my students or my customers, I like being able to interact with people and build relationships,” she says.
– Heather Cole
Published: August 3, 2026