We Love Our Children!
We Love Our Children!
Geoffrey Garrett is 32 years old and in May 2000 received a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Here on the left you see Geoffrey on the job in Morristown, where he works for the Tennessee Department of Human Services.

Geoffrey was also an active member and former officer of Alpha Psi Phi in Cookeville, which is not a fraternity but the university's science fiction fan club!

Just before graduation in 2000 he received the Distinguished Service Key service award from his service fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega; only one is given per year.

Geoffrey graduated from Cocke County High School in 1995. He ran varsity cross country for four years and was a member of the CCHS Beta Club.

Geoffrey returned to Cookeville and obtained a second bachelor's degree, this time in Sociology, in May 2004. He is thus officially a "Double BS", which some find peculiarly appropriate.


Geoffrey now lives in Morristown, Tennessee, where he works at the Department of Human Services call center. He is involved in Ninjutsu and a game playing group in Morristown also. In April 2007 he obtained his black belt in Ninjitsu. He is active both as a student and a teacher.

On the right above you see Geoffrey on his first trip to Japan in 2006, where he worked hard for ten days in Koshigaya at his martial arts discipline - and got SOME sightseeing and eating done. He made another trip to Japan in the spring of 2008, where he worked out hard and also saw more of the country.

On the left you see Geoffrey with his new bride, the formerAnna Nelson. Actually, they usually look this pleased with each other! Anna and Geoffrey are both Ninjutsu students, and were in Japan studying together during spring 2008. They have known each other for many years, actually since Anna was in third grade! They were married on September 26, 2009 in Newport. They live in their own home in Morristown, where Geoffrey Works. Anna has worked for some years for the Dixie Stampede in Pigeon Forge.

Arwen Garrett Wagers is 29 years old and a 1999 graduate of Cocke County High School, where she was first chair of the flute section in the CCHS band (also proudly known as the Cocke County Red Regiment) and also played piano in the jazz band. She also auditioned for, and made, the All-East Tennessee Band in 1999.

Arwen graduated from Rhodes College in 2003, where she majored in music and played flute in the college orchestra, the college flute ensemble, the college pep band, her church's music program, weddings, the Knights of Columbus reception at the cathedral, and about anywhere else she had the opportunity. She also performed at local churches when back in Newport for vacations and breaks. For three summers she gave flute lessons to students here in Cocke County, and she is always open for performance work.

Arwen was the 2002 recipient of the Ruth Sherman Hyde award, given each year to an outstanding rising senior in the Rhodes College music department. It included a substantial scholarship for summer music study. She used the scholarship to attend the full two weeks of the Amherst Early Music Festival in Storrs, Connecticut (the first week as a flautist, the second as a harpist), and the National Flute Association convention in Washington, DC.

Her other instrument is the harp; it quickly became her primary instrument - by popular demand. She and her husband William do a lot of performing in their church in Antioch, just a few miles from where they live.

She also loves dancing- she completed seven years as a student at the Dancer's Studio in Knoxville, where she studied modern dance and jazz dancing. She performed for several years at the school's Evening of Dance at the Carousel Theatre at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In spring 1999 she was awarded the "Silver Dancer" award given to dancers who have taken for at least seven years and upheld the principles of the school. She was also the dance mistress for the Nashville area of the Society for Creative Anachronism during 2003-2004, in charge of their dance teaching and programs.

Arwen studied piano for some years under our friend and neighbor Donna Balch. In 1998 and 1999 she auditioned for and won a small regional scholarship to pay for further music education, and also had a Superior rating in the East Tennessee Music Festival.

After 4 years of working at concessions in DollyWood, while in Newport she worked part time as a hostess at Cracker Barrel, in addition to teaching flute to middle and high school students.

For a year after graduation Arwen lived and worked in Middle Tennessee in the Nashville area. She then moved to Knoxville where she worked for the University of Tennessee library system and was a graduate student in the University of Tennessee School of Information Sciences. She was granted her Master's degree (Master of Science in Information Science) in August 2008.

You may have guessed that Arwen, like her brother, has albinism. Arwen wants people to know about albinism, and there is an excellent resource called the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation; click here to visit NOAH 's home page.


Arwen spent July 1997 in France. For three weeks she stayed with the Degremont family in the town of Conflans Ste.Honorine, then spent the last week on tour. Her stay was part of the cultural exchange program of NACEL , a French organization that has been doing these programs for forty years. They handle about 15,000 student exchanges a year.

On Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005, Arwen became engaged to William Wagers of Knoxville. William proposed to Arwen in a quite dramatic and public way at the Easter egg hunt at our house on Easter Sunday 2005. (A video of their engagemetn is below).

William and Arwen are both active members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which does medieval reenactments and other related activities.

Arwen and William were married at Church of the Annunciation in Newport on May 20, 2006, at a joyous service presided over by Bishop Charles vonRosenberg. It was one of the largest services the church has ever had! They honeymooned in Bath, Maine, and spent most of their newlywed year living in South Knoxville.

William has worked for Dell Computer in Nashville, and is now employed by a private computer services contractor in Murfreesboro. William and Arwen live in the Nashville area, where Arwen just finished her last semester of grad school online. Arwen is now employed as a cataloguer by Ingram Book Group's Library Services Division.

William and Arwen are active in their local Episcopal church, where they are a third of the choir and contribute lots of special music. They have recently bought a home in the Nashville area.

Arwen and William Get Engaged

Easter Day 2005

The striking young lady on the left, all dressed up for the 1998 Cocke County High School prom, is Emilie Marceau. Emilie is the daughter of Patrick and Gisele Marceau of Romorantin , France, about 100 miles south of Paris in the historic heart of old France, the Loire Valley.

Emilie stayed with us as part of the NACEL student exchange program. She arrived here on August 18, 1997, and returned to France on June 17, 1998.

We were honored to have Emilie share her life with us during her ten months in the United States, and are pleased to continue as her "American family". We had a wonderful 3 week visit with Emilie and her family in France in summer 2002, and returned in 2008 for her wedding (we also spent time in Normandy & Paris). She, her husband Jean-Paul, and her parents were here for Geoffrey & Anna's wedding in September 2009. As Emilie's father Patrick said, "We are the French family of the Garretts." And vice versa - we are all grateful that a student exchange turned into a long term extended family. It is both wonderful and rare.

Emilie attended Cocke County High School as a senior, though she had already completed her secondary education in France before she arrived here.

Emilie has finished medical school in Paris and passed her national exams, so she is well on the way to officially becoming "Dr. Marceau" (in France you get the title "Dr." much later in the process than here). She works in a family medicine practice in Paris.

To the right is a picture of Emilie taken at her 25th birthday party. You have to be French to look this cool with a sparkler. Here below is a video of Emilie introducing her soon-to-be husband to her American friends (we took the video in the kitchen of her parents' home in Dardenay on the Monday evening before their wedding.)



On July 12, 2008, Emilie was married to Jean-Paul Colpart in her mother's home village of Dardenay. Yes, we were all there (Virginia & David, Geoffrey, William & Arwen) and rejoicing! David spoke at the wedding, Arwen played the flute, and Virginia sang in the choir.

Emilie and Jean-Paul (and Emilie's parents) just spent 10 days with us here to help celebrate Geoffrey and Anna's wedding. And we plan to be there for the baptism of their first child, due in April 2010. They are moving into a new and larger apartment - just in time.