We Met at DU
*Submissions have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Three generations
My husband Jack (BSBA ’18; Theta Chi) and I are the third generation of couples in my family to meet at DU. While I was abroad in Ireland, Jack joined a mental health advocacy organization I started and when I got home, he went abroad to Nepal, so we missed each other for a year before meeting in 2016. We immediately hit it off! We’ve been married for five years and live in Denver, where Jack is a real estate developer, and I’m an adjunct faculty member at DU.
My parents, J.R. Pennington (BSBA ’93; Chi Phi) and Dawn Marshall (BA ’92; Delta Gamma), met outside of Chi Phi during Rush Week in ’91. They got married in ’93 and moved to northern Colorado to take over the family dairy farm, where I was raised. My dad has now retired from farming, and my mom is an elementary school health tech.
My grandparents, Bart Marshall (BSBA ’65; Lambda Chi) and Robbie Harris (BA ’65; Alpha Gamma Delta), also met at a Greek event in ’61. Greek life was important to all of us! They got married in Evans Chapel on campus in ’65 and moved to Colorado Springs, where my mom was raised. My grandparents are no longer with us, but I couldn’t be more grateful that they both decided to go to DU one fateful day in the ’60s.
– Amanda (Pennington) Rohr (BS ’16, MS ’22; Chi Omega)
It started on the stage
We were both involved in the theatre department. The last play we were in was a two-person play, so we got to know each other pretty well! We started dating in ’10 and got married in ’14. We had our first baby in ’22, and we’re expecting a second in ’24. We live in my home state of Texas, but we visit Billy’s family in Denver every year. We love coming to campus on each trip—now with little one(s) in tow!
– Billy Reynolds (BA ’09) and Kelly (Diehl) Reynolds (BA ’11)
A serendipitous snow drift
My car was stuck in a snow drift, and a very cute guy in a DU letter jacket stopped to help push it out. In the following days, I kept running into him. His name was Ignacio Jimenez (BSE ’88). He was from Venezuela, and he was on the swim team and was majoring in engineering. We started dating in ’87 and got married in ’90 at the Evans Chapel. We will celebrate our 34th anniversary this summer! DU will always have a special place in our hearts and lives.
– Tina Rice-Jimenez (MA ’88)
Like sisters
Molly Smith (BFA ’74), Sukie Hawks (BA ’74), Leslie Erb (BA ’74) and I were all residents of Centennial Halls. We’ve attended weddings, celebrated divorces and re-marriages and become godmothers and aunties to each other’s kids. We kept in touch and managed to travel together at least once a year for over 50 years. At our 40th DU reunion, we reconnected with a bunch of hooligans we called “the Race Street Gang” and had a blast. I love these women like sisters.
– Sarah Taylor (BFA ’74)
Finding meaning after loss
My husband Ian (BSBA ’09) and I met in the JMAC dorms. It was love at first sight. After dating throughout college, we separated to
pursue our careers—me at Carnegie Mellon for arts management, and Ian at the Raffles Hotel in Beijing for hotel management. Ian’s cancer diagnosis brought us back together. He was only 23.
When we found out he had cancer, we evaluated what mattered. It wasn’t about climbing the corporate ladder anymore; it was about surviving and making the most of the time that we had left. So, we got married and started a family. Unfortunately, his cancer metastasized in 2017 shortly after we found out that I was pregnant with our second child. We fought for about 15 months, then on March 26, 2019, Ian passed away.
His death left me as a young widow at 32, with two kids and a blank slate of a future. Jaded by my loss, I took a risk and started my own company, moveTHRU. What started out as an intention-based workshop to cope with grief turned into a full-blow movement. This past March, I published “Love and Grief” to help others heal following loss.
– Emily Bingham (BSBA ’08)
40 years and still skiing strong
Cathy and I met during a ski weekend in ’82, when Cathy was a guest of my brother, Glenn Springman (BS ’84), at the family cabin in Vail. We reconnected at a fraternity party the following spring, discovering a mutual love of swing dancing. We married in ’85 with brother Glenn and bestie Lynne Roberts (BS ’85) in the wedding party. We moved to New York City, where I earned an MBA from NYU. Cathy began her career on Madison Avenue in sports marketing and worked closely with another DU grad, Mary Ellen Wolfe Brown (BA ’86). In 2021, we moved to a 10-acre ranch outside of Bend, Oregon, named Silver Springs Ranch for our silver years, where we enjoy horseback riding, cycling and, of course, skiing.
– Cathy England (BA ’85) and Kurt Springman (BS ’83)
Love sets sail
Our love story began when we met on a sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands during a class called Leadership, Teams
and Values in graduate school. Since meeting in BVI, my wife Jennifer (CRTG ’16) and I have traveled the world together and been pretty much inseparable.
– Adam Bollinger (MBA ’12)
Emily was different
I played soccer in ’95-’97 and graduated in ’00. Emily (BA ’99) transferred from Ricks College and played basketball from ’97-’99. I worked in the sports information department and kept stats and game management for women’s basketball. I watched all the games. Emily was different. Confident, aggressive, physical, gifted and played incredibly. I gravitated towards her and asked her out in February ’99. We got engaged in December ’99 and married on July 1, 2000.
Now, we have four wonderful kids. Two play D1 soccer. I am a construction company owner, real estate broker and soccer trainer. Emily is a mortgage broker and RN.
– Matt Walbruch (’00)
The fun days at DU
Kathy Morton (BA '55) went to DU on a Chicago Alumni club scholarship in 1951. While attending the Methodist Student Foundation, she met fellow Illinoisan Dale Kenyon (MBA '54). Dale completed his degree and went to serve in the navy and kept in touch with Kathy while she worked in Illinois. They married in Illinois on April 11, 1959 and moved to Minneapolis. Now, after being married for almost 65 years, they remember the fun days at DU and return as often as possible to see the changes on campus and visit KMC.
– Kathy (Kenyon) Morton (BA '55)
When you know, you know
As cliché as it sounds…when you know, you know. Joe and I met for the first time at Crimson and Gold Tavern. Little did I know, he was the star of the basketball team and was also from Minnesota, only 20 minutes away from where I grew up. I invited him to the Delta Gamma formal that was being held on campus in the hospitality building—he said yes! There was always a spark, and we spent a lot of time together at DU before I graduated and moved back to Minnesota. I decided to let Joe go because long distance was not ideal, but I knew that if it was meant to be, we’d find each other again.
My younger cousin was taking a tour of DU and while there on his visit, Joe and a few other guys from the basketball team made him and my aunt feel very welcome. After his visit, I reached out to Joe to thank him for being so kind to my cousin. We rekindled that college flame and started dating. Joe planned to play professional basketball in Europe after college. That’s when all of our college fun continued, and our worldly adventures started! When planning our wedding, there was no better place for us to get married than Colorado. We got married June 17, 2023, in Vail.
– Samantha (Rosga) Rempfer (BA ’17)
We continued our love for adventure and travel
Mike Sandoval and I met freshman year, in Centennial Halls and as criminology majors. We became closer through mutual friends, became teaching assistants for Professors Adler and Colomy and began dating spring of 2003. We spent weekends climbing, exploring and camping in Moab and other state and national parks, skiing Mary Jane and Winter Park and cheering on our national champion hockey team. Mike visited me in Chile when I studied abroad there in 2004, where we road-tripped south and backpacked in Patagonia.
After graduation in 2006, Mike put his degree to good use as a probation officer in Boulder, while I entered law school at CU. We continued our love for adventure and travel, and Mike proposed during a hiking trip around Mont Blanc, in Courmayeur, Italy. We married in 2010 in Estes Park and made our home in Jefferson County. Mike has taken over his family business, and I am now a judge. We have three children who endure frequent stories of our time as Pioneers.
– Lindsay VanGilder Sandoval (BA ’06)
Our rooms were right next to each other
Cameron and I were freshman in Halls together. Our rooms were right next to each other, and I put a note on his door asking him to hang out before a hockey game one night. He eventually took me up on the offer and started coming to my room whenever the door was open (which was every day because I hoped he would come say "hi"). We started hanging out more and more, and we began dating at the start of sophomore year. Cam proposed last year, and our wedding will be in September 2024. We are very grateful to DU housing for making it easy to find each other.
– Elizabeth Drennan (BA ’20) and Cameron Petitt (BS '21)
We met at summer orientation
I met three of my very best friends at DU: Deborah (Moskovitz) Seligman, Angela (Montoya) Bricmont, and Bettina Stopford. We met during summer orientation. Our parents also met at summer orientation. We all realized this on our shuttle back to the airport. That fall, we were all on the same dorm floor—Towers 7th Heaven. We have been close ever since. Attending weddings, cheering each other in our careers, sharing parenting struggles, and scheduling trips to see each other. DU brought us together, and we have cherished our friendship ever since.
– Anne Schaefer-Salinas (JRM ’87)
Married for 60 years
I was the piano accompanist for Veryl, an outstanding contralto. We actually met in 7th grade while attending a Baptist youth camp at Black Forest Camp in Colorado. At Lamont, we both sang in the choir under the direction of Roger Dexter Fee, and I accompanied her in rehearsals and voice lessons. During Veryl's senior year (my junior year), we were on a choir tour to St. Louis, and we both realized we would like to spend the rest of our lives together. Following graduation, Veryl sang with the Central City Opera, and I pursued being an organist, which I still do on a limited (retired) basis. We were married in December after her graduation and have been married 60 years this December.
– Michael McBride (BM ’65, PhD ’79)
Four best friends
We are four best friends who met at DU in the early 1970s. Marie Gerli from Greenwich, Connecticut; Carroll Smith from Wayland, Massachusetts ; Posey Smith (not related to Carroll) from Swansea, Massachusetts , and Marian Webster from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. We now live in New Hampshire, Florida, Rhode Island and Washington/Hawaii. In spite of the distance between us, we see each other at a minimum yearly and usually more often. However, we speak to one another at least weekly if not more and group text sometimes daily. Thanks to DU for connecting us.
– Posey Smith Kooris (’74)
Built with Shorthand