Details on Jennifer Garner and her West Virginia connection

The Charleston Gazette-Mail, which selected Garner as West Virginian of the Year, is the combined Sunday paper of the morning Gazette and afternoon Mail (yes, there are still afternoon newspapers in America, although not many).

You can click on the headline on my post to read the Gazette-Mail story about Garner.

A few details:

Jennifer Garner was born in Houston.

Pat Garner, Jennifer’s mother, is from Oklahoma.

Her father, Bill, is a Texan. The Union Carbide engineer moved his family to West Virginia in 1976, when Jennifer was 3. I think that was the age that John S. Knight was when he moved from his birthplace, Bluefield, WV, heading toward an historic newspaper career and building the Akron Beacon-Journal into a respected chain of newspapers that Anthony Ridder later soiled and sold.

Back to Garner. Her parents still live in Charleston.

Jennifer is "pretty passionate about her love of West Virginia,” mom Pat Garner said. “She just considers it home.”

Susannah Carpenter, Jennifer’s younger sister and one of three Garner siblings, is an accountant who also lives in Charleston.

Jennifer attended Oakwood Elementary School in Charleston.

She performed with Charleston's Light Opera Guild and youth ballet. The athletic prowess from a childhood of dance helped win Garner the role of super-spy Sydney Bristow on the long-running TV series “Alias.”

She played a character from the fictional town of Sugarmaple, West Virginia. Sydney’s “Alias” call sign was “Mountaineer,” as in the nickname of West Virginia University's sports teams.

When she's in Charleston, Jennifer goes to the church of her youth, Christ Church United Methodist.

She was named Gazette-Daily Mail West Virginian of the Year because she praises West Virginia so often and so publicly.

It probably didn't hurt her chances that WVU football coach Rich Rodriguez, a WVU alumnus, former WVU player and West Virginia native, lost to Pitt in the final regular-season game, thus blowing a chance to play in the national championship game, then left for Michigan. Otherwise, Garner might have finished second.