For some Hawkeyes, Iowa set the stage for a meet-cute that launched their love stories.
For Valentine?s Day, more than 200 alumni and friends shared how they met their significant other at Iowa. Here are some of their stories:
Erica Cerrone Sutton (06BA) and Paul Sutton (06BA)
We met in Rienow Hall during the third week of our freshman year in 2002. Twenty years later, we are happily married with a beautiful son. We are still die-hard Hawkeye fans, visit Iowa City frequently, and have a Hawkeye-themed tree at Christmas.
Sharon Nystrom Taylor (67BSN) and Gary Taylor (66BS, 69JD)
We met at Joe?s Place, where I was with several College of Nursing classmates collecting our free pitcher of beer for turning 21 over spring break in 1966. We were married in 1968 on 6-8-68.
This picture is from when we were back in Iowa City for my 50th graduation reunion over the weekend of June 8. Since we were there, we had to go to Joe?s to celebrate our 49th anniversary. June 2023 will be our 55th. I just retired after 55 years of active nursing practice. Gary is still going strong with his private practice.
The UI was good to us!
Daisy Hutzell-Rodman (98BA) and Jeremy Rodman (96BA)
I met Jeremy in 1995 at a Saturday night party before classes started my first week. That Monday, I walked into a class titled Theory and Practice of Argument, and there he was. We were married at the Danforth Chapel on campus and are coming up on our silver anniversary this year.
Bridget Quinn Maldonado (03BS) and Stephen Maldonado (01BS)
We met in February 2001 while serving on the provost advisory committee. Stephen was representing the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and I was representing the College of Education.
This picture shows us tailgating in fall 2002, and now we?re living in Ann Arbor with our two children. Stephen is a chemistry professor at the University of Michigan, and I?m a school administrator. Wish we could make it back to Iowa City more often, but we always catch the Hawks when they?re in Ann Arbor.
Holly Tinder Bueno (00BA, 00BS) and Jesse Bueno (99BSN)
I met my husband when we both lived in Daum Hall. I was the RA on the fourth floor, and he lived on the fifth. We were both pre-nursing students at the time and had a few classes together. We stayed friends until 1998 and then began dating. Married in 2001, celebrating 22 years in June. Hawkeye fans for life!
Marquise Jackson (19BA) and Alexis Colvin (17BA)
Engaged for a year, together for six, and the BIG DAY will be May 26, 2023!
Initially, we had already known of each other before meeting again fall 2016 in a Gender and Women?s Studies class. We had mutual friends, but were in relationships of our own, and didn?t really pay much attention to each other.
Some time passed, and we were both single and still had the same mutual friends. It began as study dates at Burge (because we had to have the flatbread pizza!), late-night viewings of How to Get Away with Murder at Mayflower, and a lot of Jimmy John?s.
We?re currently located in St. Louis. She now works as a registered nurse in the NICU department. And I?m getting ready to begin teaching 8th grade English.
We?re both writers too, which only makes sense if you?re a Hawkeye.
Kate Hauser Buchholtz (10BA) and Keegan Buchholtz (08BA)
I saw my husband for the first time on the first day of my freshman year in 2006. It was his first year as a junior transfer. Then I saw him in another class the next day. We had two classes together that fall semester and haven?t looked back!
We were engaged after my graduation in 2010, married in 2012, and just celebrated our 10-year wedding anniversary. We have a son and identical twin girls who love everything about Iowa City and the Hawkeyes, as we attend all the sporting events we can!
Karin Smesrud Smith (01BSN) and Kyle Smith (02BBA, 07MS)
We met at One-Eyed Jakes in August 1999, dated for five years, and have been married for 18 years. We come back and visit Iowa City on our wedding anniversary every three years or so. This picture is from our 9th anniversary on the pedestrian bridge near the Iowa Memorial Union. We love visiting the campus, walking around, and being back in the vibrancy of campus life.
Deidra Franzen Baker (90BA, 95MA) and Richard Baker (91BS)
We met in January 1990 when we had three math classes together. He was an Iowa guy, and I was from Ohio but knew Iowa was my true home the first time I visited campus. We were studying at the IMU Wheel Room, and I asked him out. Our first date was Feb. 1, 1990. We got married at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Iowa City in fall 1991 after we both graduated. Thirty-one years later, we still live in Iowa, and our daughter graduated from Iowa in May 2019.
Jess Burbey Prill (10BA) and Frank Prill (10BS)
I met my husband, Frank, the first week of our freshman year in 2006. We started dating sophomore year and have been together ever since. We just took our daughter to Iowa City the first time this summer and recreated one of our engagement photos in the Pentacrest as a family of three.
Sarah Freed Truong (10BA) and Thomas Truong (10BA, 14PHR)
My husband and I met 15 years ago when we were both hired by orientation services to be student advisers for all the incoming freshmen and transfer students at Iowa. We got engaged with the help of the Dance Marathon morale captains on the steps of the Old Capitol. We now live in the Corridor area with our two kiddos.
Amanda Pokorney (18BA) and Ryan Digney (19BA)
We were coincidentally placed as stand partners in University Band during the fall 2016 semester, then again in the spring. This photo was the first of three graduations we've had together. We celebrated five years in September.
Andy Kutcher (13BA) and Abigail Beadle (15BA)
My wife and I met in 2011 in Currier Hall where we both lived. One of my best friends was her RA, so we got to know each other and started dating. After we moved away for grad school and work, we decided to make Iowa City our home once again. My wife took a job as a hall coordinator with University Housing and Dining. Her apartment, and our first home together, was back in Currier where we first met.
Connie Smalley Cranny (83BNS, 85MA) and Daniel Cranny (83BBA)
My husband and I met on our first day in Iowa City at a dorm party in 1979. We dated for five years and got married in 1984. We had three children, who are all graduates of Iowa as well. Between all of us, we have five undergraduate degrees and two master?s degrees from Iowa. So many great memories from Iowa City over the decades!
Courtney Major Tigges (17BS, 21PHR, 22R) and Jay Tigges (17BA, 22DDS)
I met my husband in undergrad while working at the College of Dentistry in 2015. After undergrad, we both stayed at Iowa for our respected graduate programs: dental school for my husband and pharmacy school for me. He proposed at his dental white coat ceremony. We married in 2020 and had our first child in fall 2022.
Olivia von Gries (19BA) and Daniel Murphy (20BSE)
Daniel and I met at the beginning of our junior year in 2017 and had our first date at the bench that I painted for the Benchmarks program! Four-and-a-half years later, some long distance, and a move to Oklahoma together, he proposed in the Iowa City Ped Mall at the spot of that first date. We?re getting married in June with many UI friends and former roommates invited.
Travis Bushaw (06BA) and Erica Bushaw (07PHR)
Mutual friends set up Erica and I shortly after UI Dance Marathon in 2006, while she was in the College of Pharmacy and I was in the College of Education. At the next Dance Marathon in 2007, I pulled some strings as the executive director and proposed on stage in front of our 1,500 closest friends.
J. Greg Thomas (76BS, 82MD) and Linda Thomas
I was a fourth-year medical student covering call on the pulmonary unit at Oakdale, and my wife was the night nurse. A patient?s chest tube fell out, and she called me to come evaluate. Love at first sight. We married in Iowa City six months later with a reception at the Ox Yoke Inn. That was 40 years ago. We are at Kinnick for every home game.
Paula Catterall (77BBA) and Steven Farnsworth (74BA, 77MBA)
Steve and I met spring semester 1975 when, as a grad student, he needed to take a marketing class as a prerequisite. He claimed that he would wait outside of his classes on the first day and pick out a pretty girl to sit by. We ended up sitting next to each other and talking all semester, but he was too shy to ask me out. When I came back after the summer, I ran into him on the city bus the first day of classes. Turns out he had asked me for a pen at our final exam and held on to it all summer with the intent to find me and return it. He finally got up the nerve to ask me out, and our first date was the Bruce Springsteen concert. We married in spring 1977 and celebrated 45 years this year.
Martha Jones (81BS, 83MA) and Wade Jones
My husband and I met during the Iowa basketball Final Four run in 1980. He was a basketball manager, I was a member of the Iowa pom squad. We were both juniors at the time. Members of the basketball team and pom squad thought we had to meet, because we both had the last name of Jones. They often serenaded us with ?Me and Mrs. Jones? when we were dating. We married in 1983 in Iowa City. We will be celebrating 40 years of marriage in 2023 with three children, two grandchildren, and a third on the way! We?re all Hawkeye fans, and it?s all thanks to an Iowa basketball road trip.
Emily Witt Reddish (09BSN) and Garret Reddish (09BSE)
I met my husband at Iowa in 2008 while living in the same apartment complex on Dubuque Street. He was an engineer student; I was a nursing student. We?ve barely spent a day apart since. We both bleed black and gold, and of course had to have Herky celebrate with us on our big day!
Betsy Decker (97BA) and Peter Herr (97BA)
Pete and I met in Currier Hall in 1994. His friend was dating my roommate, and they stopped by our second-floor room on their way to a movie at the Bijou. Our first date was at the Yacht Club. We were married in 2003, with our reception at the original Hancher. Our oldest child will be a freshman Hawkeye in the fall and hopes to play in the Hawkeye Marching Band! Here we are at the site of our first kiss?the side door of Currier.
Michael McDaniel
My significant other at the time was someone I should have fully embraced as that forever someone, Julie. We both were freshmen at the time of this photo. Wonderfully, almost forty years later, we have just recently reconnected, and it?s been amazing?like time has stood still.
Want more Hawkeye love stories? Check out the original Facebook thread and this 2016 story from Iowa Magazine featuring couples who were married at Danforth Chapel on campus.
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