Mr. Garner’s Summer Plans Involve Wedding Bells

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Shila Farahani
May 22, 2009
Filed under News, Top Story

Mr. Garner plans to get more than just a tan on the beach and working on algebraic equations with his TI-84 calculator. He’ll be getting his tuxedo ready for his wedding to marry his high school sweetheart.

The first time the couple met was at the track field of their high school. Mr. Garner participated in his high school’s shot put team and would practice every afternoon, what he didn’t notice was one of the band girls would march everyday to the track field to catch a glimpse of her secret crush, the younger version of Mr. Garner.

“She thought I looked mighty fine in my uniform,” Mr. Garner said. “And the same year, I placed in district and went to state. She was my good luck charm.”

Mr. Garner could do long division and solve quadratic equations in seconds, but love didn’t come so easily. His love with his high school sweetheart wasn’t the perfect teenage movie romance. The couple faced some rocky bumps, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed.

“She was looking for me for quite some time, and it took a while until she realized she made a big mistake by breaking up with me,” Mr. Garner said.

Mr. Garner and his girlfriend had kept some contact with each other through the Internet, and dated on and off throughout college.

“We were too different at the moment, we rarely saw each other and the distance was what really killed the relationship because she lived in Washington,” Mr. Garner said. “We were both immature and we still had some growing up to do.”

Another road block in the couple’s relationship was Mr. Garner’s mother. His mother required a lot of care. After her death, he felt it was his time to venture out in his own life and re-connect with his high school sweetheart.

“There were issues in my family, I wasn’t free to expose to a wife, and for the past twenty years I had to take care of my mom and I didn’t want a wife to take care of my own problems.”

Mr. Garner didn’t want to go in detail when asking about how he proposed to his fiance, but he mentioned a getaway week at the Shenandoah River.

“I’ll tell you this, it wasn’t the standard proposal,” Mr. Garner said .

For the remaining days of school, students reside as his main priority. Mr. Garner’s staying focused on preparing students for the next school year, and doing last minute lesson plans.

“It’s a challenge with every teacher to balance school and their personal life, that’s the toughest thing about teaching, the emotional strain,” Mr. Garner said .

Once the last school bell rings for summer, his main concern will shift back to wedding details, and preparring for their honeymoon trip to Colorado Springs.

His poetic soft side comes out when he compares his love to the parable, “The Pearl of Great Price.”

“It’s about a man who finds a treasure in the field and gave up everything he had to find the pearl,” Mr. Garner said. “And to me she’s my pearl of great price.”

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