SALT LAKE CITY — The president of the Birmingham Alabama Temple died Saturday after spending nearly seven weeks on a ventilator fighting COVID-19, his wife said.
Gary Pettus was 70. He had served as president of the temple for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since November with his wife, Cheryl Rooks Pettus, serving as the temple matron.
“We thoroughly enjoyed this short little season,” Cheryl Pettus said. “I look forward to the temple being reopened fully, because I’ll feel closer to him there probably than anywhere else.”
Pettus had six children with is first wife, Vicki, who died in 1997. They had 19 grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Pettus married Cheryl Pettus in June 1998.
Pettus was a big, tall man with a big heart and big personality, Cheryl Pettus said, but he didn’t like the spotlight.
“I’d rather be anonymous, but to help build the kingdom I’ll do whatever it takes,” he told the Times Daily in Florence, Alabama, when he was called in 2010 to serve as president of the church’s Tupelo Mississippi Stake, overseeing several congregations.
He was called as a mission president a month after his release as stake president.
“It is with great solemnity that I announce the passing of President Gary W. Pettus,” current Tupelo Mississippi Stake President Eric Stevens said in a message to the stake on Saturday. “President Pettus passed away earlier this afternoon after an extended battle with the coronavirus. I ask that you remember the family in your prayers. Funeral arrangements will be announced next week.”
Pettus, who joined the church at age 27, had a deep love for the temple. He and Cheryl Pettus, who also served a proselyting mission together to Colorado, once traveled to Illinois to do volunteer work at the Nauvoo Temple for two weeks during its construction.
A certified plumber-pipefitter, Pettus built his own commercial construction company, Pettus Mechanical Services, and later sold it. He enjoyed packing up his tools and driving to work on disaster relief projects helping others after hurricanes.
“He truly epitomized what it meant to serve others,” said Nels Thorderson, who served as one of Pettus’ counselors in the Tupelo Stake presidency. “Whether it was storm clean up, sweeping up during the Nauvoo Temple construction or doing the ‘dirty work’ on youth pioneer treks, he was always cheerful to do his part and help the work along. When he was first called as a stake president, he talked about cleansing the inner vessel and often taught that for the gospel to be effective, ‘Ya had to get it in ya.’”
Pettus also liked to say, “Who honors the Lord, the Lord honors,” his wife said.
The Birmingham Temple, like the church’s other 167 temples, shut down in the spring due to the pandemic. It reopened in June — Pettus performed two marriage sealings the first day — but he had not been in the temple for more than two weeks when he and his wife, as well as his youngest son who lived with them, all tested positive for COVID-19 the following month.
Cheryl Pettus said she received a call from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles after her husband’s death on Saturday afternoon.
Pettus was hospitalized in mid-July and went on a ventilator on July 19. Since then, he could communicate with his family only by FaceTime and by nodding, shaking his head or blinking his eyes.
A week ago, doctors performed a tracheostomy and put in a peg line and chest tube, which made the family optimistic, Cheryl Pettus said.
“It is a roller coaster,” she added. “Some things would encourage us and others would discourage us.”
Pettus took a turn for the worse in recent days. His family was able to FaceTime with him as he passed.
“I have no doubt he’s happy,” Cheryl Pettus said. “I knew if he couldn’t work here, he wouldn’t be happy. It’s we who are left to miss him.”