HINTON, W.Va. – Kelly Elkins, ARH Community Health and Impact Manager for West Virginia, was knee-deep in community benefit tracking recently when she received an unexpected text message.

“It said, ‘You working in Beckley today?,” Elkins recalled. “‘You busy? More importantly, are you ordained?’

“That was followed by a laughing with tears emoji.”

Elkins’ response to Summers County ARH Head Nurse Manager Sarah Barnett was brief and to the point.

“I said, ‘Yes. No. Yes. What are you doing??’”

Barnett’s texts explained she and her then boyfriend Will Blagg, a peer recovery coach at Summers County ARH, had decided to take a couple of hours away from work for a quick lunchtime wedding.

“She said they were going to the Summers County Courthouse to get their marriage license and asked if the judge couldn’t marry them that day, could I,” Elkins said. “And I told her yes.”

Though the request might have seemed spur-of-the-moment to Elkins, Barnett and Blagg said it wasn’t that random.

“We made the decision at 4 in the afternoon the day before,” Barnett said with a laugh. “But really we started talking about it about a week after we started dating.”

The couple described the moment their relationship evolved from co-workers to something more.

“Sarah was working with one of the first patients I had tried to help with substance use,” Blagg said. “I walked in and she was helping her adjust her pillow. I just remember thinking how awesome it was to watch her work to just make her comfortable.”

Barnett added, “He texted me later that day and told me he really liked how I handled the patient, and he said she was one of his favorites. I told him she was one of my favorites, too.”

Their shared commitment to caring for those struggling with substance use was one of the things that united them early in their relationship.

“The reason I’m in West Virginia is because I lost my fiancé to a fentanyl overdose,” Barnett said, explaining her move from her native Florida. “After that, I packed up my SUV one night and moved to West Virginia to help fight the opioid epidemic.

“And then here I am, I meet a guy who has been recovered for years and is helping in the same way I came to help,” she continued. “I said, ‘Oh, here’s the male version of me. It’s perfect.’”

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Though Elkins spends her days traveling throughout the region organizing community education events, in certain circles, she’s also built a bit of a reputation as an officiant, performing ceremonies under waterfalls and in backyards and parks, in churches and on the catwalk under the New River Gorge Bridge.

“I did a wedding dressed as Elvis,” she said with a laugh. “Or as I like to call myself, ‘Kelvis.’”

Barnett and Blagg’s wedding, however, was her first baseball ceremony.

“We were trying to think of where we could meet her,” Barnett said, explaining the couple’s decision to marry at home plate on Field 1 at Beckley Little League. “We had been spending so much time at the ballparks with Will’s kids (Kiera and Broly), it just seemed like it was perfect.”

So, the couple – Barnett in the left-handed batters’ box and Blagg in the right-handed box – exchanged vows at home plate.

“Then we took some pictures, sent them to Angie (Summers County ARH CEO Angie Rivera), and said, ‘We’re married! We’re coming back to work!’” Barnett said.

She also called her mom, whose own nuptials 40 years earlier were quite similar.

“My mom married my dad on her lunchbreak, too,” she explained. “I had joked that I would probably do the same one day. So, I told her we did it and she just asked what we were having for our reception lunch.

“When I said we we’re going to eat Taco Bell as we drove back to the hospital, she laughed and said, ‘Just tell people you had Mexican food at your reception.’”

Though not disappointed with their post-wedding celebration, Barnett and Blagg are planning a bigger – still lowkey – summer reception.

“That day was just for us,” Barnett said. “We’re not ballgown-party people, but we’re going to have a party with our ARH family and our parents when everyone can be there.”

They said they’d invite Kelly Elkins, too, of course.

“We love Kelly,” they both said. “She did such a great job. It was beautiful and more than we could have ever asked for.”

Elkins shared the same sentiment.

“I’m a helpless romantic and I love seeing people in love,” Elkins said. “They’re both really special people and I’m honored they thought of me.

 “I’m just so excited for them and for their future.”

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