Steve Garner

My name is Steve Garner, and my wife is Evie Garner. Having been born into a Christian family, I accepted Christ in Bible school at age 12. I was reared in Alamance county and lived there with my folks until I finished high school then went into the Army. I served most of my time in Germany where the children there would hang around and I knew God was calling me to teach. Like many others in the sixties I wanted to serve others.

While at Elon College, I was introduced by our Pastor and friend to this really sweet girl, Evie, who was doing her student teaching from Appalachian State. We dated and I realized she was the Christian girl I had always prayed would enter my life someday. We were married upon my graduation in 1970 and have been together ever since. After teaching in Vermont, we decided to move back to North Carolina to be nearer my folks. We found two teaching positions in the mountains of NC and our oldest son, Zeb, was born there. After teaching in Andrews, NC for two years I went back to graduate school at ASU. We then moved to Person County with our first born and I served in the National Guard for 30 years while teaching in Roxboro.

Our family grew as we were blessed with three more sons, Ben, Joe, and Pete, and have been here since 1974. Evie and I joined Rock Grove Baptist church where we worked as youth directors for many years taking our youth and adults to serve in missions at Cherokee. Eventually we found Westwood and decided to join the church and have been in Westwood for about twenty years.

After 34 years in the classroom, I retired to enjoy family, our grandchildren, hiking the Appalachian Trail, woodcarving, Cub Scouts, farming, and traveling with Evie. We enjoy visiting church members and their families as well as our neighbors. The highlight of our summers is when our granddaughters and grandson visit, pick blueberries and sell them at the farmer's market. In the fall we enjoy our annual Outer Banks family fall fishing trip. This year fishing was great at Hatteras!