Tim’s Notes on Sparks’
“A Walk To Remember”
by Tim Ryberg
Character Listing
The following is a complete list of the characters in A Walk To Remember. Each of the important characters will have a longer article explaining his or her relationship to the story.
Main Characters:
Landon Carter — The main character; A seventeen year old boy who cares a little too much about what his friends think about him. [article]
Jamie Sullivan — The seventeen year old daughter of the town Baptist minister; a classmate of Landon’s and who has a drastic impact on him. [article]
Rev. Hegbert Sullivan — The town’s Baptist minister, widower and father to Jamie. His wife died due to complications from child birth just after Jamie was born. He does not like Landon’s family because they benefit from the crookedness of Landon’s grandfather who exploited people to get rich. [article]
Senator Worth Carter — Landon’s father; North Carolina’s Senator whom Landon barely knows because he spends 9 months out of the year in Washington DC. He tries to run things on the rare occasions when he is home, much to Landon’s chagrin. [article]
Cynthia Carter — Landon’s mother, whom he describes as “sweet” but “not much of a home maker.” [article]
Eric Hunter — The school’s most popular jock and Landon’s best friend. [article]
Secondary Characters:
Angela Clark — Landon’s ex girl friend — his first “real” one, though it lasted only a few months — who dumped him the previous spring. Landon seems to still have feelings for her and states that she was the first girl he had ever French kissed. [article]
Lew — Angela’s new boyfriend. He is older, out of high school. He works at a garage and always carries a pack of Camels (cigarettes) rolled up in his shirt sleeve.
Miss Garber — The high school drama teacher and director of “The Christmas Angel.” She is described as, “big, at least six feet two, with flaming red hair and pale skin which showed her freckles well into her fourty’s. She was overweight — I’d say honestly she pushed two fifty — and she had a fondness for wearing flower-patterned muumuus. She had thick, dark, horn rimmed glasses (pg. 18),” and was extremely cheerful. Some thought that she was after Hegbert in a romantic capacity. [article]
Mr. Jenkins — The administrator of the orphanage where Jamie likes to volunteer.
Dr. Rawlings — the local veterinarian whom Jamie sometimes delivered wounded animals that she found to.
Carey Dennison — “Carey was the kind of guy no one wanted to spend time with at all,” London says, “and the only reason he’d been elected [treasurer] was because he’d run unopposed” (pg. 34). Landon dreaded spending time with Carey at the homecoming dance if he was unable to find a date because they were both required to attend and Carey would almost certainly attend alone.
John Foreman — A student who ran for student body president against Landon and lost. According to Landon, he never had a chance “he was the kind of guy who would pick lint off of your clothes while he talked to you” (pg. 30). But he was somewhat of a suck up — always raising his hand — and a good student.
Maggie Brown — A student who ran for student body president against Landon and lost despite the fact that she had served on the student council for the previous three years and been the junior class president the previous year. According to Landon, what had done her in was the fact that she “wasn’t very attractive” (pg. 31) and had put on thirty pounds over the summer. “I knew for a fact that not a single guy would vote for her.”
Mrs. Hastings — the woman who lived across the street from the Sullivans and who Landon was embarrassed to have see him talking to Jamie away from school.
Margaret Hayes — The head cheerleader and Eric’s date for the homecoming dance and other occasions. “She wasn’t the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but she was nice in her own way, By nice, of course, I’m talking about her legs” (pg. 46).
Eddie Jones — One of the few guys in the drama class, originally set to play Tom Thornton because no one else volunteered to audition. “He was really skinny, with pimples all over his face, and he usually talked to you with his eyes all squinched all up. He had a nervous tick, and he couldn’t help but squinch his eyes whenever he got nervous, which was practically all the time. . . .. To make matters worse, he had a stutter, too, and it tool him a long time to say anything at all” (pg. 73). When Landon took over the lead, he was relieved and for his generosity got the role of the bum, which was silent.
Jeff Bangert — A classmate of Jamie & Landon’s who was NOT in the band or on the Football team, his father was sick and had to work in the family store after school, precluding him from playing Tom Thornton
Darren Woods — A classmate of Jamie & Landon’s who was NOT in the band or on the Football team, he broke his arm when he slipped on the (fishing! shrimp?) boat and had his arm in a sling, preventing him from playing Tom Thornton.
Toby Bush — a roving handyman — and drunkard — who built the Christmas play props (set pieces) years ago when they started doing the play and as a result of his condition they were not made very well and began to fall apart after a few years, requiring Hegbert to make repairs.
Roger — an orphan who looked up to Jamie. He was the first to approach them when Jamie and Landon came to visit.
Lydia — a young orphan who fell asleep in Jamie’s lap on Christmas eve and who was one of the orphans who sent Jamie a get well note, it was written in crayon and read simply “Please get better soon, I miss you” (pg. 225).