The Healing Team
There are many individuals who comprise the group of people referred to as “Alumni Caring and Connecting.” Below are the five members who comprise what is called “The Healing Team,” a sub-group of the larger group of caring alumni working behind the scenes to help facilitate and enable this process of caring and connecting.
John Kepler
John Kepler spent 8 years at Prairie, graduating from Prairie High School in 1971 and Prairie Bible College in 1975. For three of those years he was a staff kid. The rest of the time was spent in the old J-K Dorm. Since 1984 he has pastored four different churches in Maine, New Hampshire, upstate New York, and presently on Long Island, New York. Along the way he completed Bachelor of Ministry and Master of Pastoral Counseling degrees from Andersonville Baptist Seminary. He has been married to Amy since 1979, and they have two grown children.
Jim Crites
Jim Crites was born in Three Hills to a PBI staff family. He graduated from Prairie High in 1978 and Bible College in 1982. After studying computer science in Calgary, he joined PBI staff as the Dining Room Manager, and then the Computer Department Manager. As a result of his own personal journey, he left Three Hills to attend Providence Theological Seminary, where he earned his MA in Counseling. After counseling at a private clinic in Calgary, he joined the counseling department of Centre Street Church. He later transitioned back into business, where he has been in management, using his counseling skills not to counsel, but simply to “do life” with people. Jim is happily married to Shirley and they have two boys.
Miriam Phibbs
Born Miriam Esther Maxwell, the youngest child of L.E. and Pearl Maxwell, Mim graduated Bible School in 1963, married Norman Carlson in 1964. Together they served in two different churches for 12 years, and went on to work in the golf course and travel industries. Since Norm’s passing in 2000, Mim married Paul Phibbs in 2003, and moved to British Columbia. Between the two of them they have three children and six grandchildren. They actively support grief share groups and host many friends and relatives in their home.
Rosalie Garwood
Rosalie arrived at Prairie in 1947, with her parents, when she was nearly two years old. She grew up at Prairie and took all her schooling there, right through her junior year in Bible College. She has many great memories of her time at Prairie, not the least of which was being part of a family whose home was always open to students, many of whom became like family to them. She spent several years working for Japan Evangelical Mission (JEM) and then went to Germany to work for the Janz Team. After returning from Europe, and eventually back to Three Hills, she returned to work, again, for JEM. She married David Garwood in 1981 and they love being the parents of their son, Benno, and his wife Bethany, who reside in Bozeman, MT. Rosalie has also served as the head librarian for the Three Hills Public Library and as director of a small missionary organization headquartered in Three Hills. She and David now live happily in Red Deer where David is a nurse at a local hospital.
Priscilla Johnson
Priscilla Virts Johnson was born in Three Hills, the eighth of ten children. She graduated Prairie High School in 1972 and was married a year later. She spent 28 years raising four children and then became a school bus driver to special needs kids. She is now retired and finds it a privilege being a volunteer alumnus walking with abuse survivors.
