James “Jim” Lee Gearhart, 85, embarked on his last great adventure on August 23, 2018, from the Gaston County, NC, hospice, Robin Johnson House. Most people do well to live one full life, but Jim had two lives and lived each of them fully, both personally and professionally. Jim was born in Hubert, NC, on October 19, 1932, to Lee Kenneth Gearhart and Floy Marie Matthews Gearhart. After graduating from Swansboro High School, he joined the Coast Guard, serving active duty onboard the Coast Guard Cutter CHINCOTEAGUE, a weather ship stationed in the North Atlantic. After completing three years of active duty in the Coast Guard, Jim briefly joined the Air Force as a cadet but left to join the Coast Guard Reserves, in which he served from 1954 to 1966. Jim earned his BS in Industrial Arts and MA in Vocational Education Administration from East Carolina University and attended NC State University for additional postgraduate training. After graduation, Jim began his career in education for Brunswick County, teaching woodworking in Southport, NC; then moved to New Hanover High School in Wilmington, NC, where he taught drafting and architectural design from 1959 to 1962. Following that, he worked as a coordinator for student job placement for three years. He then moved to Raleigh to work with the NC Department of Public Instruction as assistant state supervisor for all industrial education programs in eastern North Carolina and provided leadership in VICA, Vocational Industrial Clubs of America. In 1966 Jim returned to Wilmington to work as Director of Vocational Education for the Board of Education, a position he held for ten years and for which he was most proud. As director, with the aid of staff members and industry professionals, he implemented many innovative programs into the high school curriculum, some of which were firsts in the state, such as oceanography/marine sciences and aeronautics. During his tenure as Director of Vocational Education, students in the welding program won national competitions. After Medicare was implemented nationwide, with the help of nursing staff, Jim wrote the first health occupations program in North Carolina for high school students. He was instrumental in expanding summer school, making many of the innovative programs that had been developed for the school year, available in the summer to all students. In the turbulent '60s when the courts integrated the schools and social unrest threatened the community, Jim implemented a night school program to get young people off the streets and into a safe environment and to help them get jobs, while also providing the opportunity to get a high school diploma by attending classes at night. The night school program was the first of its kind in North Carolina and received national recognition for its success. Jim was a talented photographer, working first as a photographer at Cherry Point in the Air Force. Throughout the 1960s and '70s, he worked for the Wrightsville Beach Chamber of Commerce, photographing the charter boats displaying their "catch of the day.” In addition to photography, he enjoyed scuba diving, fishing, and sailing. Jim was a devoted family man who had an off-the-wall sense of humor and rarely raised his voice in anger. He provided a calm and grounded influence in the lives of his daughters, Jamy and Ann-Marie. He was an avid camper and sailor and shared this passion with his family. Together, they spent summers traveling throughout the United States and Canada. Having established himself as an innovator, an influencer, and an effective administrator, Jim was next appointed Superintendent of Operations for New Hanover County Board of Education, one of five positions that reported directly to the superintendent and a position he held for eight years until taking an early retirement in 1984. During his tenure, Jim oversaw the air conditioning of every classroom in the county, converted all school buses to diesel, and implemented the first pay grades ever offered for custodial staff. As a child, Jim grew up on the coast of Onslow County, NC, where everyone had a boat; however, he had never seen a sailboat until he met a man who had docked his sailboat at the landing close to Jim's home. The man regaled young “Jimmy” with stories of his adventures sailing all over the world. Jim knew, in that instant, that someday he’d also like to do that. Throughout his adult life, he owned and operated seven power boats and six sailboats. When Jim retired from the Board of Education at age 52, he made his childhood dream come true. With his equally adventurous wife, Marty, he set sail. They cruised the Chesapeake Bay as far north as Baltimore, MD, and sailed down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida, through the Okeechobee Canal to the Gulf and west coast of Florida, the Shark River, and on to Key West. They spent one winter cruising the Bahamas as far south as George Town, Exuma. Jim obtained a U.S. Coast Guard Ocean Operator license and worked as a captain for Florida Yacht Charters at Miami Beach Marina. Miami Shores, Florida, was home base for many years while he and his wife delivered yachts throughout the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, and twice through the Panama Canal to Salinas, Ecuador. For a year they cruised their 32' sailboat, SNAP DRAGON, from Miami through the Caribbean to Venezuela, where they drove the scenic Trans-Andean Highway from Puerto la Cruz to Merida and stayed in a 16th Century Monastery turned hotel. During the sail back to Miami, they encountered waterspouts, and once narrowly avoided inadvertently being caught in the middle of a Coast Guard drug bust. They ate fresh seafood straight from the ocean, enjoyed local cultures, and made friends with people from all over the world. Although Jim had many jobs during his retirement, they were all nautical in nature and, to him, they never felt like “work.” For two years he worked for the City of Miami, running a small ferry from Pelican Island Marina on 79th Street Causeway to Pelican Island. The job for which he derived the most satisfaction, though, was working with Boy Scouts of America, which he did for over ten years at the Florida Sea Base high-adventure camp on Islamorada in the Florida Keys. He purchased a 42' Tartan off-shore cruising ketch, ANTARES, and took Boy Scouts sailing for a week at a time in the Keys. Always the teacher, he taught them sailing, snorkeling, navigating, and safe boat operation. When Jim wasn’t sailing, he was traveling by RV with Marty. Twice they traveled from Miami to Maine, Nova Scotia, the Maritime Provinces, and Newfoundland, Canada. They spent a year traveling from Miami to Phoenix/Apache Junction, through the U.S. and the Canadian Rockies all the way to the Arctic Ocean, Alaska, and by ferry down the Inside Passage to the Pacific Northwest. Jim enjoyed hiking. He hiked both ends of the Appalachian Trail – Mount Katahdin, ME, and the southern terminus at Springer Mountain, GA – and many parts in between. He hiked to the top of Gros Morne in Newfoundland. He hiked the Grand Canyon four times, once from rim to rim with a heel broken off his boot! Jim shared his love of camping, hiking, and traveling with his grandson, Max, and took him along on some of his road and hiking adventures. Jim and Marty sailed the ANTARES to Puerto Rico in 2007, where they lived at San Juan Bay Marina for several years while Marty worked and then started a court reporting business. Jim was the resident dock expert on cruising, and he enjoyed talking with captains and crew from all over the world who passed through Puerto Rico on their way north and south. In 2011 Jim and Marty sailed their boat back to the States to be sold, and then lived in a high-rise condo in Miramar, overlooking the Condado Lagoon where they walked most days, often stopping to have breakfast on the beach. Jim enjoyed hiking the rain forest in El Yunque and exploring the island. He loved his life in Puerto Rico and the friends he made there. In 2016, Jim and Marty returned to North Carolina to live in Gastonia, where Marty took care of her 96-year-old mother and where Jim began chemotherapy to treat the prostate cancer he had had since 2007. Jim handled the disease with good humor and grace, and lived a full and active life for most of the 11 years he battled cancer. His death from sepsis and acute irreversible kidney injury/failure was unexpected but was mercifully quick and pain-free. Jim was predeceased by his mother, Floy Marie Gearhart, and his father, Lee Kenneth Gearhart (both of Hubert, NC), as well as his nephew David Ryan (Chester, SC). Jim is survived by his devoted wife and first mate, Margaret “Marty” E. McArver (Gastonia, NC); by his two daughters, Jamy Lee Gearhart (Winston-Salem, NC) and Ann-Marie Gearhart (Mt. Holly, NC); his grandson, Maxfield “Max” Davis Gearhart (Winston-Salem, NC); and his former spouse and mother of his daughters, Shirlee Morton Gearhart (Wrightsville Beach, NC). He is also survived by his sister, Florence “Flo” Gearhart Ryan, and brother-in-law, Lewis Ryan (both of Chester, SC) and their three children, Lewis Ryan, Jr. (Chester, SC), Charles “Charlie” Ryan (Columbia, SC), and Evelyn Ryan (Hilton Head, SC). To honor Jim's requests, some of his ashes will be buried at his mother's grave at the Campbell-Matthews family cemetery in the Bear Creek community where he grew up, on Saturday, November 10, 2018, at 10:00 a.m., Pastor Terry Golden of Bear Creek Baptist Church presiding; and there will be a ceremony aboard a Coast Guard cutter in Miami, FL, on December 31, 2018, to send the rest of his ashes out to sea, to continue his travels around the world in the ocean he so loved. The family invites all friends, neighbors, former students, teachers, colleagues, and fellow sailors to join them in reminiscing and telling stories at a Celebration of Life in Wilmington on Saturday, November 10, 2018, from 4:00 – 7:00 p.m. Please e-mail Marty McArver at mcmarty11@yahoo.com or contact her at (787) 237-4927 for location and to RSVP.