Jerry Stephens

At last count . . . 20! (Christmas gets awfully expensive!)

We have a cat and a bazillion bees that live out back in my bee hive.

9/6/1975

Two days after graduation my family moved from Nocona--they to Ft Worth and I to Illinois to spend the summer working on a dairy farm (we had moved from Barry IL to Nocona in 1970). I returned to Ft Worth in the fall to attend TCU but after one semester I had a major falling out with my father and, suddenly needing a place to live, I joined the US Navy. I became a back-seat flight crewman on a submarine-hunting jet aircraft. Flying off an aircraft carrier was a blast; living on it wasn't! When I wasn’t deployed aboard an aircraft carrier I was stationed near Jacksonville, Florida.

Shortly after arriving in Jax a series of events forced me to realize that things were out of control in my life. I knew something had to change, but I was clueless about what to do and powerless to do anything anyway. A girl I took out on a blind date talked me into going to church with her. What I experienced was something I had never seen in any church I’d been to before: the people had a genuine faith in God, and they truly loved one another. Even more amazingly, they seemed to care about me. That evening, December 30, 1973, I went back to that church and by the end of the service had given my life to Christ.

A week later the Sunday School teacher of the teen class threw a birthday party for a girl in the church. The birthday girl asked me to come as her date. In walked Jeanie (the Sunday School teacher’s niece). She was by far the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life. I was smitten . . . badly! Though by then I had been saved for fully a week, I confess I was still something of a scoundrel (probably still am)! I followed this lovely creature everywhere. The poor birthday girl (my date!) cried and cried; Jeanie was none too pleased either.

About five months later Jeanie and I began dating. We were married a year and half later on September 6, 1975. We now have five children, Jonathan, Kristina, Rebeccah, Hannah and Timothy, each of whom is married. We now have 20 grandkids (a handful were acquired via blended-family marriages). By the way, I still think Jeanie is the most beautiful person I’ve ever known!

In 1979 I left the Navy to pursue vocational ministry. Jeanie and I served for a number of years in various pastoral roles in north Florida.

In 1987 we moved from Florida to central Ohio. I initially served with a church in the Columbus area and in 1992, I joined the pastoral staff of Vineyard Church of Columbus. When we arrived VCC was large and growing; it has since grown to a weekly attendance of about 10,000. In 1997 I left VCC to plant a Vineyard church in a nearby town. I later served as Associate Pastor of another Vineyard in Dublin OH (a suburb of Columbus), and pastored the Vineyard church in Mount Vernon OH. In March 2014 I became pastor of the Vineyard Church of Morrow County in tiny little Fulton Ohio. I finally retired out of that role on Christmas Eve 2024—just a few weeks after turing sixty-ten (my way of dealing with what comes after 69).

I also operate a business (Ministry Consulting Group) that does administrative and leadership development consulting for churches and other faith-based non-profits. Most of our clients are in Ohio but we also serve clients in 20+ others states and several other countries.

One of my passions is missions in the Amazon basin in Brazil. I served 20+ years on the board of Xingu Mission (www.xingu.org). Awhile back Jeanie & I looked into retiring in Belize (Central America). Alas, a few years ago I was discovered to have a genetic heart condition.--had to have a defibrillator implanted. The same condition took my father at age 50 & his father at 62. My heart is in pretty good shape but in all likelihood, that ended our Belize dream due to their third world med facilities]. We definitely want to find someplace warmer. North Texas maybe?!?!

Things I remember about NHS & the town of Nocona

- graduating on May 26, 1972; and then taking off two days later and making it back to Illinois to witness the graduation of my old class in the small town where we lived during my first two years of HS.

- Great football team. I remember how insane everyone was about HS football. Ohio is much the same way . . . but I think (at least in regard to HS football) still comes in second. I do think we have a better college football team (as in THE Ohio State Buckeyes!) . . . but that's just one man's unbiased opinion ;) I do still consider myself a TCU Horned Frog (I briefly attended TC before joining the Navy). My OSU scarlet and grey kinda clashes with the TCU purple—but I kinda like the contrast!

- Small graduating class (actually, I prefer to think of it as just the right size).

- The tragic night in April 1972 (prom night) when Beth Spivey died--I still get a lump in my throat when I think about it. Beth was an exceptional person and her death was devastating to the entire community. Because our names were close alphabetically, she would have stood next to me a few weeks later at graduation.

- How hard it was to break in when we moved to Nocona in 1970. A lot of that was my shyness.

- The school dances. I didn't dance but loved to go. Some friends talked me into dancing one time and actually got me onto the floor before the music started. Then the band cranked up Inna-Gadda-Da-Vida--the long version! Arrgghh! I didn't last very long on the dance floor. No one did--that's a hard song to dance to.

- Making several of the Future Farmers of America judging teams my junior year and doing pretty well at a couple fairs.

- The new Vo-Ag teacher kicking me off the FFA teams my senior year because I had grown my hair long ;(

- What started as an FFA project raising a show pig turned into a small hog & chicken operation. Then a pack of wild dogs killed all my pigs and chickens. I sold my remaining sows and got out of the farming biz.

- Trying out for the football team but having to sit out due to what was thought to be a medical issue. After it was too late to join the team it was discovered that the 'problem' was actually a typo (arrghhh!)

-driving my parent's 1952 Chevy to school and (don't tell anyone) occasionally drag racing it at the airport

-working at Medlin's Printing . . . until I got fired. I got bored one day standing there feeding the printing press hour after hour--I got sloppy and a lot of envelopes got messed up. I was rightfully invited to find other employment. That job paid a whopping $1.25 an hour. My net pay for a 16 hour work week was about $15.

-One July 4 the town's mayor was firing off the fireworks out at the lake from the back of his brand new El Camino. Sparks got into the stash of fireworks and they all went off at once. Whee!

-Miss Annie King. She was a delightful 90-something. Her house was wall-to-wall books. Though she had only a 6th grade formal education, she was one of the most intelligent, well-read people I've ever known. I still treasure a book she gave me. I used to mow her lawn just for the privilege of getting to talk with her.

-My dad was briefly in the ministry (he was pastor of Central Christian Church, which is what brought us to Nocona). Three months after we moved into the then 'brand new' parsonage my mother almost burned it down! She was making popcorn. In the 'olden days' popcorn was made on a stove top using hot oil. She got distracted and the oil burst into flames. By the time the fire department got there the cabinets were burning and the entire house was filled with smoke. The church was pretty gracious about it, but I suspect there were more than a few who whispered, "What was she thinking?" And a few more who whispered, "She wasn't!"

-When I was a senior our public speaking class teacher (what was her name??!?!? She also taught English) assigned me to deliver a speech on what it's like to be a preacher's kid. I used the whole speech to plead just to be treated like anyone else.

- Helping a family in the church 'pull cotton' (pick it by hand). To this day, that is the hardest work I've ever done. I lasted one day. Pay was based on the weight of the cotton I picked. I made about $8 for a ten-hour day. I did not go back the second day.

- Taking the SAT when I was so sick with the flu I could barely function. Somehow, I still did pretty well--but I suspect many of my answers were guesses.

- About 1971 our church youth group (all six of us) painted the youth room. We put red & white stripes on the walls and the ceiling was blue with white stars. We then draped a sheer parachute across the ceiling. We thought it was 'far out'.

- In the school newsletter when they did my senior profile they wanted to know my favorite song. I wanted to portray myself as a serious rocker but I could not think of a single song title. Someone suggested Zep's Black Dog. I used that even tho I wasn't particularly fond of it at the time.

- One of my buddies (Joe Bratcher) had a small motorcycle--I had a car. Neither of us were licensed for the other vehicle . . . but that didn't stop us from swapping all the time. One evening I rode for hours in the rain. I got sick and ended up with pneumonia. Missed school for a week. The day I got back to school I did it again--swapped vehicles and rode in the rain and spent another 3 days home sick. You're right--I wasn't very bright!

- Once I beat this old guy (about 30) playing one-on-one basketball on the court behind the jr high school. Turned out he was the HS B-ball coach. He wanted me on his team, but I couldn't play my junior year because of the transfer rule and I had a job my senior year.

- I went through a phase for a couple months where I went to Montague twice a week to roller skate. I actually got pretty good. I've only been on skates 2 or 3 times since--wouldn't even want to try it these days (I've discovered that my previously 'indestructible' parts are actually quite breakable).

- I was painfully shy. In fact, I didn't go on my first date till I was at TCU. But that didn't stop me from having a crush on about half the girls in the school (the other half had boyfriends who were bigger than me).

- Being shy also didn't stop me from having one of the sassiest mouths in school. Fortunately, I was a fast runner ;)

- I remember one day going with some buddies up to the river to go grappling (some call it noodling). Then and now, I am incredibly grateful we didn't catch anything! Another time my brother & I were seining minnows from a farm tank to use as bait. It was just about dusk and when we pulled up the net we saw we had something big. We started to grab it but noticed just in time it was a water moccasin!

- One of my fond memories of Nocona was the catfish and mashed potato salad at Rick's Drive-In. You folks still living in Texas may not think that's such a big deal, but here in Ohio it's just about impossible to get good catfish and no one has ever heard of mashed potato salad. Just about every congregation I've ever pastored has heard about that mashed potato salad!

- I remember cruising up and down 82--and sitting at Rick's watching everyone else cruising.

- I remember the jet at the park and learning to play golf at the course on the edge of town (out by the airport, if I remember correctly).

- I remember when all the songs they now call oldies were the hottest new thing on vinyl (deep sigh). I remember saving up a few bucks to go to the record store to buy singles and LPs to play on my little phonograph.

- I was accepted at Texas Tech but lacking the funds to attend, I applied at TCU. My mother was secretary to the dean of admissions so I was accepted in about five minutes and got a huge tuition discount. While there I had my first serious romance but it ended up fizzling out a year or so after I joined the Navy. She was such a genuinely sweet gal. I hope things turned out well for her.

- I remember when I couldn't wait to get older . . . and now I long for the good old days when I was younger.