Our father, David Fay Shaner, was in the U. S. Navy at the time, and because of that, we moved quite a bit, or some would say, A LOT!  When Lisa was four months old, we moved to Brunswick, Maine. But for only nine months, before we moved on to Newport Naval Training Base. We lived in Middletown, Rhode Island, on the Base family quarters from 1964 until 1968.
 
In the summer of 1968, we moved to a Chicago suburb, Vernon Hills, near the Great Lakes Naval Training Center where my dad was then stationed.  It was there our family became much more engaged with the activities of the church and was introduced to youth groups, Bible camp and more social life than one person could handle… except Lisa!  She excelled in people skills, laughing, and FUN!
 
In 1975, when my older brother and one of my younger sisters had left for college or marriage my dad moved my mom, along with Julie and Lisa, to Madison Wisconsin for one year and then on to the Milwaukee area. 
 
Lisa attended Oak Creek High School graduating in 1981.  While in school she was very active in athletics, playing softball. She was on the Pom-Pom squad and… she was on the Girls Track team where she excelled in the SHOT-PUT!  She was a grown up full sized young lady that no longer wanted to be called the Baby!  And, my brother and I obliged… or she would have punched our lights out!
 
In April of 1982 Lisa gave birth to a son, Colby. She knew that in 1982 she could not give that boy the life he deserved. She made the very difficult, heart wrenching, and courageous decision to let somebody else take that boy and raise him as their own.  Eighteen years later Colby and Lisa reconnected and they have had a loving relationship every since. Colby told Dave and I yesterday that he has no regrets for the decision Lisa made.  And that he is just excited to be a part of this family.
 
Lisa then took her determination and her spirit of energy, moved on, got married and had three more amazing children, two sons and a daughter.  Allen was born in April of 1984, A.J. in July of 1985, and Nikki in December of 1990!
 
Lisa had her share of heart aches, and body aches! She had 27 auto accidents!  Several broken bones, falls, and a variety of other health related injuries! 
 
But she seemed to be resilient to defeat. Maybe it was the athlete or the cheerleader in her? Most of all it was the Holy Spirit that was guiding her days and nights.  She never left the fellowship of a loving church, or Jesus the son of God, in her life.  This spirit drove her to look forward and press on towards the prize.
 
After several years of raising her children on her own, on August 18th, 1996 Lisa married Art Bagwell.  Her life seemed to be back on track. Art helped Lisa thrive. They worked together and raised their children for another 10 years, until one tragic day, August 19, 2006… while Art was mowing the grass, he suffered a massive heart attack and died in her arms!
 
Earlier in April 2000, our mother passed away.  Lisa was still the baby, and she took that hard!  Harder than the rest of us, save my dad. 
 
In 2006 at Art’s passing, my dad was able to comfort her like none of the siblings could.  He also had lost a spouse. Their common grief enabled them to bond even more than they had been over the years.
 
But, Lisa was finally bruised beyond her ability to hold on…  She grieved, we grieved… she was broken. After several weeks, months, maybe even years of mourning she picked herself back up and she moved on, again!  It was the only thing she knew how to do… move on.
 
Lisa immersed herself in her kids, her work, her church, and had about as much energy as any woman I’ve ever seen!
 
Her children all grew up. Allen was commissioned in the Air Force after graduating from the Citadel. AJ was working for the school district in his then hometown of Greeneville, SC.. Nikki is a cheerleader and has been attending Columbus State University. Allen married Meghan, AJ married Ashley, and Nikki is now planning her wedding to Merit for later this Summer.
 
In 2009 she met the love of her life when she met Brandon, and on October 10, 2010 she and Brandon got married.  She asked me to perform the ceremony, but when I checked my calender, I noticed that date was on a Sunday? I thought that was strange, but she explained that Brandon was a computer geek and they getting married on a day that looked like 1-0-1-0-1-0, the binary equivalent of Computer Nirvana!  It was right then, without ever have met Brandon, that I liked him!
 
About the only thing she was prouder of than her husband and children was her now emerging next generation… her grandchildren!  McKenna was born in August of 2010 and Katelyn was born in May 2012.
 
Lisa passed from this life last Sunday, January 27th. She was 50 years and 7 days old.  Lisa celebrated her 50th birthday just eleven days before her demise.  She had a party planned but it was postponed because of her health issues.  So were just going to do that for her right now!
 
She is survived by her husband Brandon, her four children, their spouses, six grandchildren, two brothers, two sisters and their spouses, 13 nieces and nephews, 21 great nieces and nephews, her father, a multitude of work associates and friends, and a whole Kingdom of God that meets here… and all over this world!
 
So Lisa, were all here… let’s party!
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“I’ve met somebody,” he said, with a sense of I want to tell you that I have a girlfriend. “Oh, tell me more.”  I relaxed in my chair waiting for the deets! “Well, he said, I’ve been dating her for a few weeks now and I really like her.  Her name is Kara Rogers.”  He continued with a few details about her major, her hometown and the usual other background info.  I knew that Aaron had had a serious relationship that had ended the summer before, and I didn’t think he had been dating much.  He was working a lot and was trying to finish up his last semester of school and was very active in his Social club that he was instrumental in starting just three years earlier.  He was also starting to look for a youth ministry job for when he finished school in May.
 
Then the most surprising and exciting bit of information was passed along to us.  “How did you guys meet,” I asked? “We met on a blind date,” Aaron said. It was a club function for one of the women’s social clubs on campus.  Delta Gamma Rho, a social club with about 100 young college co-eds, planned a blind date function!  First they gathered all of the names of the girls in their club who was willing to go on a simple group event where they met their dates for the evening at the first of many locations for which the event would take place.
 
Aaron got the invitation to the blind date function through campus mail. he received an anonymous postcard with just a box number on it with a sandwich bag attached. He then put his tie in the bag and mailed it to the box number on the card. 
 
Megan Hitt, now Meghan Jones, gathered the willing club member’s names and went out asking guys on the campus that she knew if they too would be willing to go on a blind date? If they responded yes, they were to bring her one of their neck ties (remember neck ties?). After collecting all the ties Megan sat down and got to do what a lot of young women would love to be able to do - play matchmaker, deciding which girl would be handed each boys tie.  The girls didn’t know who’s tie they received and the boys didn’t know who would be receiving their ties! 
 
As the blind date event got started, all the participants were to gather in one of the large classrooms on the Harding campus, McInteer 150. There were probably 75 girls that were willing to participate and Megan had a guy lined up for each one of them.  The guys would come in, find the girl that was wearing his necktie, walk up to her and introduce himself.  For the rest of the evening that young lady was his date. The event was a progressive dinner where the group would travel from their starting location to a variety of different locations for the different courses of the meal.
 
As the event unfolded for the introduction part of the evening the many young men came in a few at a time, found their dates and starting meeting each other.  As fate would have it, Aaron got stuck at work, while Kara waited, and waited… I’ve never been stood up for a blind date (I only went on one in my life and it was a good experience), but I think we’ve all heard stories of such nightmares. Aaron called Meghan and told her he would be late so while Kara was probably anxious, she wasn’t worried that she wasn’t going to be stood her up.  She had never had a boyfriend although she certainly was girlfriend material! Kara was cute, sweet and she exuded personality! A few weeks later when I first met Kara I immediately gave Aaron the two-thumbs up sign.  But back to the blind date event… As the different participants arrived and paired up Aaron was nowhere to be found.

Aaron had got held over at work.  He worked at the Bible House, a local Christian bookstore in Searcy, and for whatever reason couldn't get out the door even though he knew he had a date.  Finally, he was able to hurry home, hop in the shower and rush over to McInteer 150.  There was Kara, standing all alone wearing his tie! Aaron was very embarrassed and very sad that Kara might have been worried. 
 
“I’m so sorry!” Aaron exclaimed again and again!  Kara was too nice to say anything other than, “No worries, let’s have fun this evening?”  And off they went on the progressive dinner making stops at various locations for the next course of their meal as they had different games and activities at each stop.  They exchanged the normal stories about each other as anyone would that was on a blind date.
 
Throughout the evening Aaron felt bad about being so late…  They had a lot of common friends. During the next two weeks they had a couple of group activities together before Aaron asked Kara out for a one-on-one date. And the rest, as they say, is history!  They never dated anyone else and remained a couple during the next 21 months before they got married.
 
Aaron finished college in May of 2007 and promptly went on an 8-week Mission Internship to Mozambique before returning to the states and leaving the next day for our family’s only all member mission trip as we went to Belize for a week. Soon after, Aaron was off to start his first professional post college job as the youth minister of the Bayside Church of Christ in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
 
Kara had another year of college left so they started a long distance relationship, making as many trips back and forth as their finances and schedules would allow. As graduation 2008 approached they decided that Kara should move to Virginia Beach so could continue their relationship in the same town before making any decisions about forever more.
 
Upon one of the visits to Virginia Beach Kara made some connections with a few school teachers and soon was offered a job teaching Middle School English and Honors classes.  Just the fact that she was skilled at teaching Middle Schoolers, seventh and eighth grade students, gave me a higher admiration for her than I already had.  I often quipped when telling others about my son’s girlfriend that she got a “Go-Directly-To-Heaven” scholarship and surely would receive a few extra stars in her crown for teaching this age group!
 
A few months later Aaron was proposing marriage.  (I’ll let them tell that story in another post.) On December 18th 2008 they got married.  They had “the tie” from their blind date in a frame and a bit of copy telling the story of their blind date… And I got to officiate while they “Tied the Knot!”
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