Happy Valentine’s Day – Love Under The Columns

For 166 years Westminster has been known as one of the finest private colleges in the country.  But who knew it was also a love connection?  To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we asked Westminster alumnus to send us any personal stories of Cupid’s arrow finding its way to their hearts right here on campus, and several couples responded.  Please enjoy the following personal reminiscences of  alumni who found their true love under The Columns.

Bob (’72)  and Gwen Deal from Indian Hill, Ohio

Bob tells us in 1970 he was an unattached Westminster student with no prospect of finding a better half.  However, the busy social calendar at Westminster provided him with the impetus to find a date for the weekend. Fortunately for Bob, one of his good friends had started dating a young attractive Alpha Chi Omega from William Woods named Gwen Hurst.  He now felt he had a pathway to romance with women of The Woods because Gwen could set him up with dates.

“It wasn’t until later that I learned of Gwen’s unique interpretation of that task,” Bob says.  “Armed with a William Woods yearbook, she began showing me pictures and I began giving her names.  Had I known this could have been a money making proposition, I would be far wealthier now as the owner of Match.com.”

However, Bob spent the next week with no dates.  Little did he know Gwen had decided she was interested and was saving him for herself.  As Bob puts it, “I was the poster boy for the unaware.”

Bob and Gwen dated the rest of their time at Westminster and became engaged.  But fate had other plans for them.  Fortunately, four years ago, they reconnected with each other through Facebook, and social media became a lot more social.  Still madly in love with each other, they married and plan to spend their remaining years together, living happily ever after in Cincinnati.

Ken (’87—Sigma Alpha Epsilon) and Jill Miller from Lexington, Kentucky

Ken transferred to Westminster in 1985 and met Jill, who is a 1986 graduate of William Woods, during Rush Weekend.

“Jill and I talked that first night we met for hours under the big oak tree that stood so long at the SAE house,” says Ken.

Two years later the couple got married and they have been together ever since that first weekend that Ken came to Westminster as a student.

Wil (’11—Sigma Alpha Epsilon) and Markie (’10) Lampkin from Hermann, Missouri

Wil and Markie England first met at Westminster in 2007 when Wil came here on a football recruiting trip.  A year later Wil was at Westminster, and they were dating. Wil did end up playing football quite successfully.  He represented the best of both worlds as a student-athlete. He was named both first team All-Conference for football and Academic All Conference in the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference. Markie was a successful athlete herself, as she played women’s basketball and is second in career blocks for the Blue Jays and was second team All-Conference in the 2008-09 season.

Wil and Markie have now been married for five years and have one child.

Sam (’10—Delta Tau Delta) and Marissa (’08—Kappa Alpha Theta) Denehy from St. Louis, Missouri

Sam Denehy and Marissa Tyler first met when Sam, still a high school student, paid a college visit to Westminster to check out the school and see his older brother, Adam Kloppe, who was a senior.  Marissa was a Westminster sophomore at the time and attended a party at the Delt house with her roommate Katie Pilgram who was dating Sam’s older brother Adam (as it turns out, Adam and Katie also tied the knot).  So Marissa knew “Kloppe’s little brother” was going to be at the party, and she wanted to meet him.

However, the close connection between these two really didn’t begin until after Sam came to Westminster and applied for a part time job at Central Bank.  Marissa was a teller at Central and not only convinced her boss to give Sam a job but to give him a higher salary so Sam would choose Central Bank over an offer he had received from one of the bank’s competitors.

Sam came to work at the bank, and Marissa and he became great friends.  Their relationship only changed from friends to romance when Marissa graduated from college and stayed in the area with her job.  In June 2013, the happy couple got married in front of almost 50 Delts and Thetas.

Today Sam and Marissa live in South St. Louis with their two greyhounds.  They both work at Wells Fargo Advisors.  Sam is a Compensation Consultant and Marissa is a Practice Management Consultant.  But the best investment they made was in each other.