Sharon Costello came south from Worcester, Massachusetts to Valdosta to study theatre. On the advice of her high school drama teacher, she selected a small school with a good theatre department that was affordable. ("It was the closest thing I could get to Florida and not pay their exorbitant out-of-state tuition", Sharon explains).

She moved to Illinois following graduation and worked in radio and television; and as a house mother of a Methodist home for troubled boys. After two winters with the Mississippi River freezing solid, she remembered that there was a land where water never got too hard to run out of your faucet, and returned to Valdosta.

The Stewarts met onstage performing in a mutual friend's production of The Importance of Being Earnest. They married two years later, and will celebrate their 32nd anniversary this July.

They have three children: Ryan, 29 and a gifted wanderer who alternates between haute cuisine and carpentry; Shaun, 25, who pays bills as a district representative for a company who supplies parts to mobile home manufacturers, but lives for the times his guitar is in hand, and /CC Shakedown, /is performing their mixture of Rock 'n Roll, Bluegrass, and Blues; and Rebekah, 18, who is a freshman at LaGrange College, majoring in Percussion, Voice, and Creative Music Technology. They are often found babysitting their grand-dogs: Maggie, who claims Ryan and Simone, who adores Shaun.

The Stewarts found the Episcopal Church in 1978 when they wandered into St. James Episcopal Church in Quitman, Georgia, shortly before their first child was born. "It seemed a natural place for me, a former Methodist, and Sharon, a former Catholic to meet," Bill says, "but as we look back, it was God's doing, and not just a coincidence... it's not something we'd have ever done on our own."

At the behest of their priest, Fr. Bob Carter, the Stewarts attended Cursillo #24 in August of 1980. Both Stewarts have been active in the Cursillo movement since, with Bill and Sharon each serving on numerous teams, as a weekend Rector, as President of the Diocesan Commission on Cursillo, and both have attended National Episcopal Cursillo Conference as Diocesan Representative. Sharon is serving on team for the upcoming Cursillo #112 in February.

After working nearly twenty years in local government (primarily in Cordele) as Chief Appraiser for the Board of Assessors, Bill finally began investigating a nearly life-long urging towards ordained ministry. One by one, the obstacles were met - including completing a college degree that had been abandoned years earlier. Fr. Bill was approved for postulancy in 1997, and entered an alternative pathway to ordination in the summer of 1998 by enrolling in the Summer Advanced Degree Program at the School of Theology at Sewanee, Tennessee. Working five to seven weeks each summer, he supplemented that scholastic regimen with coursework through the Church Development Institute of the Episcopal Church, and with certification in Clinical Pastoral Education at a regional hospital. He was sent as one of several observers to the Diocese of Northern Michigan by our Bishop to study Mutual Ministry efforts there, and served two years locally as chair of the Mutual Ministry Development Commission for this diocese.

The Rt. Rev. Henry Louttit ordained him as a transitional Deacon in November of 2001, and to the Sacred Order of Priests in July of 2004. He will complete his second term on Diocesan Council at this Convention.

Working as a bi-vocational priest, his first altars were as Priest-in-Charge of Worship on the Water, a seasonal outreach ministry of Christ Episcopal Church, Cordele which he founded and served for five summers; and as Priest-in-Charge of St. Stephens, Leesburg, where he served four years. Fr. Stewart is completing certification in Interim Ministry through the Episcopal Clergy Leadership Institute.

The Stewarts have entered a new chapter in their lives now. Fr. Stewart closed down his appraisal consultation business in January of 2006. Sharon finally retired after 31 years of teaching (scattered over 36 years of living). She currently contracts with Crisp County BOE to coordinate and administer the testing process for giftedness identification, and she does special public relations work for the school system through local media. She is also under contract with Sumter County Schools to develop and write their Policies and Procedures for Gifted Students, a task she oversees for Crisp County.

"With the last child in college now, and with our schedules 'loosely' under our control, we really think of this as a brand new chapter." Fr. Stewart said. "We're so excited about our time at Annunciation... and about what the future holds for us together."