Mr. Lyles Hoover Kearns

Funeral services will be held at 3:00 PM Sunday, June 19, 2016, at Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church, where Lyles was an active member, with Reverend Dr. J. Alexander Ward officiating. A private burial will be held prior to the service.

Lyles was born July 3, 1928, in High Point, a son of the late Allen Carl Kearns and the late Irene Baird Kearns, and lived at 604 Willowbrook (now South Elm St.) until young adulthood.

He attended High Point public schools: Ada Blair, Ferndale and High Point High School. Lyles worked in the O.D. Stutts neighborhood grocery, delivering groceries from early boyhood. He also delivered the High Point Enterprise. After high school he attended High Point College; graduated in the spring of 1950 and began work as an accountant at Young’s Furniture and Rug Company. Lyles was drafted into the Army in October of 1950, landed in Korea as a recruit in January 1951 and 21 months later was honorably discharged as a Master Sargent. Upon discharge, he married Dot Kendall in August of 1952 and returned to work at Young’s where he retired in 1983 as a co-owner.

Lyles remained active in retirement, becoming a founding member of American Bank, which ultimately became the current branch of High Point BB&T. He was a Volunteer at High Point Regional Hospital where he amassed in excess of 8200 volunteer hours and was the recipient of the first Hilda Fountain Volunteer of the Year Award in 2014. He served as a Past President of the Alumni Association at High Point College and was a current member of the High Point University Board of Visitors. He loved the YMCA and attended there almost every day. Lyles also served as the liaison from Friends of the Library to the High Point Public Library Foundation. He was active in the Guilford County Democratic Party and his High Point Precinct HO2. He was an avid vegetable and flower gardener and also loved to bake, especially cheese rings and homemade bread.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Dot Kendall Kearns; and three children, his son and daughter-in-law, Kendall Kearns and Lipika Mohanty; daughters and sons-in-law, Jeffri and Tommy Adkins, Leigh and John Owens; seven grandchildren, Thomas Adkins, Philip Adkins and wife Meredith Brown Adkins, Ryland Nisos and husband Isaiah Nisos, Catherine Adkins, Anne Taylor Owens, Dallas Owens and Tucker Owens; one brother, Gilbert Allen Kearns; and two sisters, Carlene Kearns Gilmer, Ovid Kearns Smith, and sister-in-law Faye Wright.

The family will be receiving friends from 6:00 PM until 8:00 PM Saturday, June 18, 2016, at Sechrest Funeral Service in High Point.

Memorials may be made in Lyles’s memory to either: The Wesley Memorial Choral Scholar Endowment Fund, 1225 Chestnut Drive, High Point, NC 27262; or High Point University c/o Office of Intellectual Advancement, One University Parkway, High Point, NC 27262; or The YMCA of High Point Foundation/Heritage Club, Attn: Amanda Weiner, PO Box 6258, High Point, NC 27262.

Online condolences may be made at www.sechrestfunerals.com.

Sechrest Funeral Service of High Point is honored to serve the Kearns family.