CHRIS A. STEWART serves as President, General Manager and Funeral Director in charge of Stewart Family Funeral Home. He earned a bachelor’s degree in management from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1983. While at SFA, he was a four year letterman and captain of the football team. In his senior year he was presented the Mart Crawford Award for Character, Discipline and Leadership. Chris graduated from the Dallas Institute of Mortuary Service in 2000. Prior to joining his father in developing Stewart Family Funeral Home, he served as general manager of Cathedral in the Pines Cemetery. He has more than ten years of helping others in the funeral service industry.

Chris is a member of the Stephen F. Austin State University Alumni Club and the American Society of Personnel Administrators. He and his wife Carol have been married for ten years and have a daughter, Samantha and a son, Peyton. Carol is an educator who continues to teach part time and serves along with Chris in the children’s ministry at Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler.

JOHNNIE STEWART serves as Vice President and Senior Consultant for Stewart Family Funeral Home. He has been helping families in the Tyler area for more than 50 years and previously was part owner and manager of Lloyd James Funeral Home in Tyler. Under his guidance, Lloyd James became the largest and most prestigious funeral home in East Texas. The firm was purchased in 1992 by a large international funeral service consolidator. Johnnie remained as President and CEO until 1998.

He attended Tyler High School, Tyler Junior College and Landig College of Mortuary Science in Houston. Johnnie is past president of the Tyler Parks Board and past distinguished president of the Optimist Club of Tyler. He has also served numerous funeral home professional organizations. Johnnie is a member of Green Acres Baptist Church, Rotary Club of Tyler and Hollytree Country Club. He has been married to Martha Foshee Stewart for fifty-one years and they have four children and five grandchildren.

DON MCELROY started in the funeral home business in Alice, TX as an ambulance driver for his family?s funeral home while attending high school. He is a graduate of the Dallas Institute of Mortuary Science. After two years working for a Dallas funeral home, he was drafted and spent two years in Germany in the Army Mortuary Service.

In 1972, Mr. McElroy founded the American Mortuary Service to meet a growing need to provide embalming services to area funeral homes. He sold that business in 2000 and moved to the Philippines where he taught mortuary science. He moved back to the Dallas area in 2002 and shortly thereafter came to East Texas.

While working in the Dallas area, McElroy found himself providing mortuary services after several historic events. Those included the death of President John F. Kennedy, the private plane crash that killed singer Ricky Nelson, the crash of Delta flight 191 at DFW Airport which killed 137 people in 1985, and the Branch Davidian fire In Waco.

McElroy is married to his wife of 21 years, Rita, of Grand Prairie. They have one daughter and two grandsons.