‘… When She Least Expected it, I Got Down on One Knee and Proposed’

BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times GERREN AND CARLA WHITLOCK SR. Live: Pelham Married: April 17, 2010 Met: October 2008, at Carla’s job at State Farm Insurance on Lakeshore Parkway. Her job was hosting an agency showcase, and Gerren, who lived and worked in Ridgeland, Mississippi, at the time, was considering a move to Birmingham and was there because he was interested in becoming a State Farm Agent. Carla remembered one of her friends, Oriah, calling and saying, ‘Hey, did you see a guy at the showcase named Gerren?’ and I said ‘yes, why?’, and she said ‘What did you think?’, and I asked what am I supposed to think, because it was strictly business for me,” Carla recalled. Oriah also called Gerren and “she asked me if I remembered seeing someone named Carla, and asked me if I was dating anyone at the time, and I was,” Gerren said. “But I told her I was open [to meeting someone new] because at that point in time, I was looking for my wife and I knew that the person I was seeing wasn’t going to be my wife. So Oriah gave me her phone number, but I...