Gregory Dean Stobbe, February 22, 1962 – March 21, 2025

Greg Stobbe, born Gregory Dean Stobbe to Herbert and Margaret (Ewert) Stobbe, is one of myths, legends, and stories. Either making them up to make others smile, or by way of others telling of the lore surrounding his teaching career, shenanigans in his youth, or overall vitality and good nature.

Born in Matsqui, British Columbia on February 22, 1962, Greg was basically born with a hockey stick in his hand. His early years growing up in rural Abbotsford were wild and free, as he played and ran with his childhood– and ultimately lifelong– friends.

His teen years were characterized by lots of hockey, singing in his band, playing his guitar, and blasting 60s and 70s classic rock albums in the basement or on his 8-track in his car he outfitted with a stereo system fit to blow eardrums.

Elected student body president at Mennonite Educational Institute (MEI) and graduating in 1980, he transitioned from a small-town stage when he decided to move to America: the great Metropolis of Fresno, California at 18 to attend Fresno Pacific College.

Although originally a temporary move, Greg thrived at Fresno Pacific. On move-in day, he found lifelong friends as “The Brethren” shared a passion for hockey and similar interests in campus pranking. Legend has it they somehow forgave all student library fines in a valiant act of bravery. Yet, despite his whimsy and untamable thirst for joy and life, Greg’s focus, drive for knowledge, and compassionate spirit blossomed during his young adult years. During his studies, he maintained a near perfect GPA and graduated from Fresno Pacific in 1984, earning a bachelors in English with minors in Communications and Drama.

After graduating, Greg wasn’t yet ready to return to British Columbia, so he began a three-year volunteer program with Christian Service at VORP (the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program) as a mediator. During his years at VORP, his life took a turn for the best, when he ran into a former classmate, Geena Bruno.

Anyone who knew Greg was confident in three things: his deep devotion to his hockey team the Vancouver Canucks, his unrelenting faith in Christ, and unabashed adoration for his sweetheart, Geena. She was everything to him. Their love was for the movies, the soul mates and partnerships one rarely witnesses in a lifetime. Only about a year dating and the two were engaged on a magical snowy Christmas in Abbotsford. They married six months later on June 21, 1986.

During their first decade of marriage, while leading worship at Fig Garden Bible Church, playing in local hockey leagues, and starting a family, Greg went back to school to get his high school teaching credential from Fresno Pacific University. With two daughters and a third on the way, Mr. Stobbe (AKA Stobes) began his 30-year career at Fresno Christian High School.

Teaching English, drama, and journalism, Greg’s teaching career was personified by his wild hair, alarming shrinks, and chaotic madness that plagued the halls. His youthful energy and excitable mayhem was the perfect match for high schoolers: They not only identified and connected with him, but also respected his methods as they were equally educational as entertaining.

Nearing his 10-year wedding anniversary and well-established on campus, Greg used the resources available to him and decided to start organizing 2-week educational trips to Europe for students. On planes, trains, and automobiles, Greg never missed a beat in helping naive kids learn just how big and amazing their world is.

Greg’s drive to take small-town minds and push them to large-scale success was rooted in his own resolve as a small-town boy wanting to grow bigger than life. His most notable vessel was the school’s publication, The Feather.

He started the school’s newspaper just a few years into his teaching career, with nothing more than five students and a closet. Eventually, the publication went online, and Greg saw how successful his own career could actually be, not just on a small-town stage, but nationally.

Greg and his students began attending student journalism conventions from coast-to-coast not as participants, but under invitation as educators, as The Feather collected award after award, prestige after prestige under his forward-thinking and creative tutelage. The Feather attracted students internationally to Fresno Christian as his program gained value. All the while, he focused on truth, fact checking, and finding stories that shared the human condition to share in articles, videos, podcasts, and more. Breaking norms, achieving the impossible, and always lending a hand to help others up, Greg’s profound impact earned him two lifetime achievement awards from the two top national scholastic journalism organizations.

Nothing, however, brought him more joy than his family. Greg’s relationship with his wife and three daughters was the core of his joy. He refused to play a passive role in his daughters’ upbringing. From feeding the girls their first bite of solids, to taking them out to tacos after a high school breakup, he never lost touch with being a really great dad.

As the girls grew up, Greg no longer played in his local roller hockey league or led worship, and so Greg and Geena began their next season with less parental obligations. They developed a love in the kitchen, cooking and hosting elaborate dinner parties regularly. As Greg’s love for food and wine grew, he began posting on Instagram as TalesoftheCork. From Paso Robles, Sonoma and Napa, California, to Burgundy, France and Tuscany, Italy, TalesoftheCork grew from a pastime to a bonafide hobby. He used his platform to promote local events, restaurants, businesses, and food trucks around Fresno and Clovis, to teach people how to cook, and to share his passion for life. Most importantly, he used his blog to tell the stories of winemakers, chefs, and aficionados.

His desire to uncover the human condition was the theme for his life and English courses, as he pushed students to answer the question he himself wrestled with, “how then shall I live?” This question, he argued, defines all of our understanding of truth, and how we live out our morals, ethics, and values. Running into class waving a newspaper clipping, or crying over the beauty of a classical author in class, Greg’s passion to understand truth and the human condition was a driving force in his career and life.

“How then shall I live”, he argued, is life’s most important question. “It defines how we live, and from where we come. And therefore should define who we are as humanity because of every individual experience that led us to this moment. Life is much more than the circumstance we find ourselves in, but a determination to base truth and next steps on what we read, who we talk to, and asking what is beyond our circumstances. The more we understand the human experience through perspectives, stories, thoughts, experiments, circumstances, the more new conclusions alter how we live in light of it.”

In his weakened state, he ultimately found the truth to be in having a Savior who loved him, forgave him, and accepted him just the way he was.

If that overrides everything, then we can overcome all that shatters our world. If this is true, then nothing else matters. So then he circles back to, so then, how shall we live?

Greg is preceded in death by his wife Geena Bruno Stobbe on September 15, 2020, but survived by his daughters Brianna Phillips, Brittany and Brooke Stobbe, son-in-law Stanley Phillips, grandkids Autumn and Branson Phillips, dog Bentley, his dad Herb and brothers Buzz and Doug. He now joins his beloved sweetheart, for whom his soul never stopped longing.

A shared celebration of life service for both Greg & Geena Stobbe will be held June 14, 11 a.m. at Clovis Christian Church. 1701 Locan Ave. Clovis, Ca 93619. This event will be live streamed for those who can not join. (QR code on invitation).

Obituary written by Brooke Stobbe. To view obituary visit Gregory Dean Stobbe

To read more about Greg Stobbe visit, Greg Stobbe’s life altered by cancer, visual impairment, Stobbe’s shenanigans, or

Longtime journalism adviser receives highest honors.

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