Pacific Index

Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: A&E

Alumni Dancing

According to the Office of Alumni Relations, Pacific has more than 13,000 alumni living today, and of those 15 percent have reported to the school that they are currently in committed partnerships with one another. It is impossible to know how many are together that have not told the university.

According to an article from The Michigan Daily the national average was 34 percent of alumni had become committed to eachother.

Amongst other northwest schools, Pacific is equivalent with Whitman College - at 16 percent of alumni - who are partnered with each other. Reed College has 21 percent. Linefield College has 13 percent of its alumni in active and committed relationships, while Lewis and Clark University is down to only eight percent.

With 50 percent of college students paying off loans, and the average wedding costing more than $25,000 dollars, college relationships usually lead to cohabitation before they walk down the aisle.

While satistics show that living together increases the possibility of a relationship ending in divorce, couples with higher education tend to have successful marriages.

Alumni Relations has found this to be an attractive quality of the alumni. There are 17 alumni couples amongst Pacific's faculty. In 2007, the couples were invited to a Valentine's Day luncheon to celebrate the commonality of their relationships on the campus that nurtured them. This year, they have designed alumni valentines to send out with a Forest Grove flare.

Most alumni love stories vary depending on interests and era, but proposals on the steps of Old College Hall or on the AZ Sidewalk were common. Between meeting during freshman orientation, or the halls of Walter Hall, the soccer fields, at choir reherseal, English 201, Taylor-Meade Performing Arts Center, or at the Rainbow Lanes bowling alley, Pacific alumni admit finding love in their undergraduate residence in Forest Grove.

Here are three stories of alums who met and fell in love during their stay at Pacific University.



Giving up a four point for love


Elia (class of 1997) and Esther (class of 1998) met in 1995 after he transferred from the University of Cincinnati. He majored in accounting and thought it would be fun to take a creative writing class.

During the first week of class, he noticed a beautiful girl with a perfect part in her hair and cool shoes. It was then that he met Esther, a creative writing and education major.

Elia asked Esther if she would like to get together to compare papers but they never discussed the papers once they started talking. Through the course of the evening, Esther went from dating someone, to kind of seeing someone, to breaking up with him, to barely dating him anyway.

Elia claims that he traded his 4.0 GPA for his wife, earning one of two B's during his Pacific career in that creative writing class.

They were married in 2000, and had their first child in Feb 2006 and expecting their second in Feb. 2008.

Elia says he got two great things from Pacific: an excellent education and the love of his life.



First love is first met


Milton Nelson was the first man Shirley Womsley '55 met at Pacific. Both of them were planning to major in journalism so they had several classes together.

They discovered other commonalities: the Methodist Church and a love of music. The Nelsons can trace their relationship to a December night of walking around Forest Grove singing Christmas carols with other students.

They dated during the rest of our freshman year and into their sophomore year. Milt proposed to Shirley on the porch of Herrick Hall after bringing her back from a weekend in Tillamook where she met his parents.

They are celebrating 54 years together with four children and two grandchildren




Trial and error leads to love


Jennifer Hadley-White '96 knew who Casey White '94 was before she officially met him. During her freshman year she noticed Casey and his friend always ate in the UC. The boys were hard to miss with long hair, long goatees and muscles. In fact, if not for those muscles she may not have noticed them as much.

But don't get her wrong, it wasn't that she was attracted to Casey's muscles; it was that his strong legs literally moved the Earth for her: he had a compulsive need to shake his legs. She even noticed the water in her glasses moving and the vibrations through the floor.

It took her weeks of trial and error before we realized it was "those two guys". Then in Jennifer's sophomore year, Casey and Jennifer were formally introduced. Soon they were dating and three days after Jennifer graduated, they were married in Old College Hall and held their reception in the Milky Way. Recently, they revisited the campus with their son Jonah and they look forward to returning with him as he gets older. The Whites celebrated their 12th wedding anniversary this May and over 14 years of being together.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools