William G. Gardner was born in Bellingham, WA on February 14, 1939 and attended Bellingham schools. He received a BA in English from Wheaton College in 1961, where he played football for four years and was a member of the Student Missionary Service Program committee, serving as president his senior year. He married Susan Hawkins (of Webster Grove, MO) in 1962 and had two daughters. He also received a Bachelors of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, where he served as a student minister and playground director at Temple Baptist Church in East Los Angeles, and a Masters in Education from Claremont (CA) Graduate School, specializing in linguistics. He went on staff for a period with the First Baptist Church of Ontario, CA and in 1970 returned with his family of four to Bellingham to a fulfilling public school teaching career at Sehome High. He taught literature and creative writing at Sehome High School in Bellingham for 30 years and retired in 1999. He was an early member of the Bellingham Recorder Society and a White Rock recorder group. Bill Gardner died January 26, 2011 in Birch Bay, WA.