2 8 • GCU TODAY
GCU
Alumni
N
o matter the day of the
week nor the time of
year, L.E. “Sharky” Baker
never gets tired of sitting at the
breakfast table, reading from the
Bible and working the Jumble.
Best of all, it is there that he has
gazed, most every day for nearly
58 years, at the beautiful face of
his beloved.
“It’s just a good feeling to get
up every day and sitting across
fromme is thewoman I love,” said
Baker (Class of 1956) who has been
married to his sweetheart, Leona
(Class of 1962), since Aug. 3, 1957.
When the pair first met in
1954 at Grand CanyonUniversity,
then known as Grand Canyon
College, Sharky was enrolled on
a basketball scholarship, wrote
a sports column for the school
newspaper, worked on the
yearbook staff andwas a janitor in
the dorms. Hewas the oldest of six
children and the first in his family to
go to college.
Leona (Wood) came from
Colorado andwanted to become
amissionary. Sheworked in
the cafeteria, one of a handful of
buildings to accommodate 600
students, including a dormeach for
themen andwomen. It was outside
Leona’s dorm that Sharky spotted
her. Hewas smitten.
“It took awhile for her to come
around,” he said.
“The Lord changedmy
direction,” she said. “I realized
that I could be a missionary
anywhere I could share Christ’s
love. Through prayer, I just knew it
was OK.”
They married, and Sharky
began a career in education,
starting as a teacher, then
advancing to principal and
superintendent. He is a past
president of the GCU Alumni
Association and in 2012 was
named “Alumni of the Quarter.”
Sharky credits his success to
having Leona, who has a degree in
elementary education, by his side.
Leona said his best qualities
are patience, generosity, honesty,
dependability and love. Sharky
describes her as supportive,
sacrificial and “most of all,
beautiful.”
They have enoughmemories
to last another lifetime, having
raised two children, and enjoying
four granddaughters (all are
GCU alumni) and three great-
grandchildren, with twomore
on the way. What they started
apparently is contagious: To
date, more than 70 Bakers and
members of the extended family
have graduated fromGCU.
A special edition of Class Notes
Eyes only for each other
Charles Baker, B.S. in
Elementary Education, ’57, and
Alice Baker, B.S. in Elementary
Education, ’54,
met at a GCU
basketball game. Charles was
sitting on one of the benches and
Alice and her friends sat behind
him and visited throughout
the game. Charles asked Alice
to attend the Sweetheart
Banquet with him on Valentine’s
Day in 1953, and that’s when
they became sweethearts. A
year later, on Valentine’s Day,
Charles asked Alice to marry
him. They were married in 1955
and are celebrating their 60th
anniversary this spring.
James Carter, B.S. in Physical
Education, ’57, and Ginger
Carter, B.S. in English and
Physical Education, ’58,
knew
each other as friends until
January 1955, when James asked
Ginger on a date. In March, after
James had been away with the
basketball team in California,
Ginger missed him. When the
team returned and Ginger saw
him again, she realized she
wanted to be a part of wherever
he might be going. James asked
Ginger to marry him at the
Sweetheart Banquet, and they
were married in March.
Watch a video about the Bakers and read other
Lope Love stories a
LOPE L VE
L.E. “Sharky” and
Leona Baker
