Sweet Heart Stories

Your anniversary: 10/10/1981

Amy and I met during rehearsal in the Music Department at Andrew. She signed me into Rhodes Hall to watch TV one evening – Mrs. Moore was very strict about guys being signed in. We married in October 1981, moved to Villa Rica, Georgia, in May 1982, and have been in Villa Rica ever since. I am a Funeral Director with Collins Funeral Home in Villa Rica and hold a Bachelor’s degree in Funeral Service and Mortuary Science from Southern Illinois University. Amy has a degree in Secretarial Science from Meadows College and is a CSR with Applied Industrial Technology. We have three children: Haleigh and our twins, Forrest and Kara. Haleigh graduated with her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree from Columbus State University. She teaches Kindergarten at Providence Elementary School. Forrest graduated with his Bachelor’s from Valdosta State University and is employed with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department. Kara graduated with her Bachelor’s and Master’s from the University of West Georgia and is working on her Specialist Degree at Piedmont University. She teaches Pre-K at Glanton-Hindsman Elementary School and is married to Josh Tinnian. Amy and I are empty nesters and are both still working.

Where you first met: The cafeteria
Favorite place on campus: Sweet Shop
Your Anniversary: 06/06/1969

Jimmy Bentley, my best friend for life until his death in 2020, and I were sitting in the cafeteria when Gayle and her friends walked by. We both liked her sweater and flipped a coin to see who would ask her out first. I won, and the rest is 56 years of loving history. Later Gayle introduced Jimmy to her roommate at another school, and they were married a few years later. We had some good times together at Andrew that we will never forget. Life is good and the kids and grandkids complete it. It all started at Andrew college.

Where you first met: Mr. Salter’s 8 AM Math Class
Favorite place on campus: The Student Center
Your Anniversary: 03/24/2014

Allen and I met while we were both attending Andrew College. I was attending Andrew on a softball scholarship, and Allen was pursuing his degree in sports management. On a Monday, coming back from a weekend of away games, I walked into class and Allen looks over and says, “I was looking for you this weekend, I needed help with my math labs.” (Now mind you, we had NEVER spoken besides “good morning” before this day.) Without a thought, I immediately said, “Well, you should have texted me,” and the rest is history. We both enjoyed intermural sports, making several trips to the local Fred’s, traveling to Eufaula when we wanted to “get away”, attending all the sporting events we could while supporting our fellow Tigers, and also Allen making every attempt to attend as many softball games as he could. Our graduating class use to call us the “Power Couple.” Crazy to think the little town of Cuthbert, GA, and Andrew College brought together me my husband of 4 years on November 5th, 2020.

Where you first met: Andrew College tennis courts
Favorite place on campus: Sweet Shop and athletic field
Your Anniversary: 12/15/1973

We were attracted to each other but did not start dating until the last month of fall quarter 1971. Once we started dating….it was history. We now have been married 46 years. If I had not graduated from high school early, I would not have met the love of my life.

Where you first met: Summer of our Junior Year in high school, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
Favorite place on campus: Sweet Shoppe
Your Anniversary: 06/15/1968

Bill and I enjoyed two happy, memorable years at Andrew. And, 52 years later, we’re still making happy memories with our Andrew College Families. The best life experience, EVER. We love “Andy U” as much as we LOVE each other. Looking forward to many new memories with y’all.

I first met Matilda in Old Main during a Freshmen event the first week of school.
Favorite place on campus: Patterson/pool table
Anniversary: 11/08/2015

I met Matilda my first week of school through another South Korean student named Merry. I originally had no intentions of dating her, but as fate would have it, we kept ending up together hanging out, grocery shopping, etc. We officially got together at the end of September 2013–not thinking about the future, living just for today. Our relationship was in jeopardy after Andrew College told Matilda that there wasn’t enough financial aid funding to keep them at Andrew the entire year, and that they would have to leave in December. With a lot of phone calls, emails, and an amazing financial aid officer by the name of Blake Coty, we were able to secure her another semester’s tuition. Fast forward to spring 2014.  I decided I did not want our relationship to end in Cuthbert, so I studied hard and applied for a South Korean education scholarship with the help of Pai Chai University and the amazing Ms. Knight. I received the award and was able to go to South Korea for six months where I had the greatest fall/winter of my life.

I spent a lot of time with Matilda and her family (even extended family) and they loved me and I loved them. Come November 2015, time was running out again. Refusing to let any bureaucratic/ government nonsense keep us apart, Matilda applied for a visa to work in Auburn, Alabama. She got accepted on her second attempt. The next morning upon her arrival in Auburn, I talked to Dr. Lattimer about what had happened and he said, “Man why are you still here? Go!” So, I made those long drives many weekends.

I finally transferred to CSU just to have a shorter drive. Fast forward to October 2015, and we were faced with our second biggest dilemma. Matilda’s visa was going to expire that next spring, and there was only option left. We had a long talk, realized we were going to be together no matter what, and decided to get married and go through the exhaustive and expensive green card process. With the help of my parents and sheer determination, we were wed November 8th, 2015 and passed the green card process later the following April. We have been happily married three years now and live in Atlanta.

Where you first met: on the campus of Andrew College as freshmen 1994
Favorite place on campus: The Sweet Shop, no longer there
Anniversary: 09/09/1967

It was love at first sight for me. Sandie (James) Adams ’66 took a little more convincing. Two faculty members were especially influential in our lives, Sara Ann Staples and Price Foster.

When we left Andrew, we went to Georgia Southern and moved to Atlanta after school. While at GSU we married and lived in a married student area called Benson’s Trailer park. Our first two children was born in Atlanta and our third in St. Louis.

We have nine grandchildren and they walked Sandie down the aisle to me when we were re-married in the same church on the same day 50 years later.

Somehow Sadie has put up with me for all these years and I will always be grateful to Andrew College for the education and my greatest gift.

Anniversary: 12/15/1979
Brenna (Taylor) Dixon ’79 and I met during our freshman year at Andrew. Polar Opposites in so many ways, and so much alike in so many others. We married less than a year after we graduated in 1979. We have a son (Robert), a Major in the Army, and a daughter (Caitlin) who is a designer in Houston. We are expecting our eighth grandchild in March 2019.

My name is Diane (Baker) Harwell and I am from the class of 1968. My twin, Harriet (Baker) Parker ’68  was already a student at Andrew and convinced me to transfer in the spring of 1967. Well, as it turned out, it was the best move I ever made.

There was a shy guy that I saw around the campus and was introduced to him in the Sweet Shop. My dorm room in Old Main had a good vantage point to watch the tennis courts below. Well, one day I saw my shy guy Joe Harwell ’68  playing tennis with a friend and I thought, this is my chance. I gathered my tennis gear and headed over and sat on the bench nearby. I looked like I was obviously waiting for someone to meet me and play. Joe asked me who I was waiting for and I said, “Charlotte Johnson,” a made-up opponent. Joe said that he would hit with me when he was finished. So we hit and then were off to the Sweet Shop for a cherry Coke and their yummy French fries. That meeting led to the Wednesday Night Movie the next night and we continued to see each other on a daily basis. We ate all of our meals together, studied together and were pretty much inseparable.

As Joe was from Savannah and I was from Atlanta we spent our summers mostly apart. Our relationship was a long distant one for a while. We eventually married in December 1969 and then my twin, Harriet married shortly after in July 1970. She married an alumnus, Bob Parker ’68. We both borrowed an Andrew alumnae’s wedding dress. Her name was Phyllis Prickett Adams ’68.

Joe and I will celebrate 50 years in December and Harriet and Bob will celebrate 40 years in July. We all have the fondest memories of this wonderful place and we made lifelong friends that we will treasure forever.

My husband and I have the honor of being the very first Andrew Sweethearts.  This is how it happened:

It was 1956.  I was 17 and about to graduate from high school. While getting my hair cut, I glanced through Redbook magazine and found in the back pages several columns advertising schools and colleges.  One of the ads was for a small, women’s junior college affiliated with the Methodist church, located in a small town in South Georgia. The college ad kept burning a hole in my purse, and a couple of days later I re-read it and decided to speak with my minister about it.  He urged me to apply. Dr. George Gambill, the new president of the college, sent me my acceptance letter. His letter also advised me that the school had gone co-ed and that so far two boys had registered – one from as far south from the school as I was from the north, and one from a 20-year-old who had been to business school in Atlanta but was thinking of working toward becoming a minister. His name was Wayne Cook. As I had a boyfriend back in Ohio, I didn’t give much thought to either of the boys until a group of us were invited to Wayne’s family farm in Colquitt, GA for a long weekend. I knew then that I would always love Wayne. It was just a short time until I got a message to go to the front parlor –that someone was waiting for me there. Wayne looked at me and said he loved me and then softly kissed me. After a couple of ups and downs, we were married on May 29, 1959. We were blessed with three sons and a daughter. Our son, Paul ’80, also married his Andrew College Sweetheart, Margie Dooley ’81 in 1983.

In 2009, I was coming back to Andrew for my second year. I remember the day that Chase (class of 2010) actually showed up at the school. It was a Saturday, one week after classes had started. A good friend of mine, an RA from Mitchell who also met his wife at Andrew, checked him in. Now I had no idea who had checked in until about a week later. I was in Mitchell Hall for a movie night in the lobby with friends and Chase was sitting on the couch doing homework (the only time I recall seeing him actually do homework). I thought he was cute but at the time I was dating my high school boyfriend so I was like — well I guess I can be friends with him. He joined in on movie night and from then on, he just joined our group. We spent five weeks becoming friends and hanging out. It was finally a trip to the movie theater in Albany when we realized that being friends was not what was in store for us. That night riding back from watching Final Destination 4 (which I did not pick) with the whole group and talking, Chase realized I had a boyfriend and I watched his face fall in complete hopelessness. At that point, I realized we had to see where this went. I choose to end things with my high school boyfriend, we started dating, and the rest is history.

Leonard (Cartrez) ’02 and I first met at Andrew College in the year 2000. He was a very nice guy who happened to be friends with a lot of the girls around campus. One day, I was sitting on the steps of the dorms and he walked by and said, “hey Pam”! I was happy to know that he knew my name. In fact, I was excited and from there it was like we already knew each other. We begin to hang out almost every day and honestly, we became best friends. We were inseparable and have been ever since. I knew he was the one because I wanted to marry him after only a year of dating! My favorite memory of my love is when we were all hanging in the student area and he declared how I was a “ray of sunshine” in his life! He was and still is the love of my life and I thank God for allowing us to meet at Andrew College in 2000.

My husband, Daniel Watkins ’04 and I met at Andrew in 2002. We started dating in 2003 and were married in 2006.

My husband Greg Johnston ’93 and I (Susan Keels Johnston ’94) met at Andrew, Fall quarter 1992. He was on the baseball team and I was on the softball team. He says we met when I asked him to vote for me for SGA, but I don’t remember that meeting. We were actually set up by some of the other softball players who thought we would get along. We did. The night we started dating, we went to a concert at the cafe to hear Curnutte and Meyer. When we got married in 1996, Dr. Seyle, who was a favorite professor of ours, performed the ceremony.  My roommate from Andrew flew back from Japan to attend the wedding and Carlene Wade ’94and Jeremy Alexander ’94 (also Andrew Students in the Choraliers) sang. We are both occupational therapists, live in Columbus GA, and have three boys Joshua 18, Eli 13, and Paul 12. We lived in Bulgaria from 2010 to 2015 as missionaries working with the evangelical church there to develop ministries for the disabled. We also started a baseball camp for kids run by the church. We now work for Muscogee County School District.

I arrived at Andrew in August of 1970 with my brother, Ken Floyd ’72, and my best friend, Vivian Keller ’72—straight from Costa Rica where our parents were serving as missionaries. I met my future husband, Russell Adams ’71, in the admissions office the first day there. We will celebrate our 44th wedding anniversary on March 17, 2017. My brother also met his wife, Cristina Castex ’72, at Andrew. Who would have thought that out of a student body of only 200+, my brother and I would both find our life-long loves! We now live in Cordele, Georgia.

What do you do when there’s a cute new guy on campus (Tom Alderhold ’69) and the only time you can casually meet him is at lunch and that conflicts with Biology class? Well, you ask Miss Sarah Ann Staples if you can cut class, of course! Yeah, I really did! She agreed to allow my absences as long as I kept up with the assignments (and maybe shook her head and rolled her eyes at me a little). It took Tom a week of lunches before taking the hint. Then, I had to tell him no more lunches, I had to go back to class! We will have been married for 46 years on February 13. Oh, and I made a B in Biology!

My husband, Ed Perry ’68, was in the cafeteria (so he says) and decided that he would ask the next girl who walked in out on a date. Lo and behold, in I walked! I had noticed him earlier and thought he was cute, so said “yes.” We went to the drive-in movie. After that date I said “never again,” but when he called and asked me out again, off I went! We dated that year and part of the next, but as we were in different colleges we broke up for a year and a half. We stayed in touch though and in our senior year in college we got back together and were married in my home church, First Baptist in Dalton, Georgia on September 5. Thanks to the Good Lord for pushing me through that door at Andrew, as Ed and I have now had 46 years together. We established Horse Creek Winery on our farm in 2008 and recently opened a tasting room and bistro. We have three children and three grandchildren.

I met my Sweetheart, Douglas E. Walker ’65, at Andrew in 1963. We met in front of the bookstore. He asked my suite mate out on a date and then sent her upstairs to ask me to come down. I was really mad about that.. What Nerve….  We did go out and our first date was to Providence Canyon. What fun we had, of course the first kiss did not hurt that glory of that day. We dated for the rest of our stay at Andrew and it was magical. We graduated in 1965 and left to attend Georgia Southern University. No sooner had we gotten to GSU, we got married, moved back to Jacksonville and began our lives together. We had one son, Nels. Doug and I both worked in medical technology. He was a blood banker and I was a chemist. We worked our way up in the ranks and both became administrators. We retired in the early 2000s. We were blessed to be able to do a lot of traveling in both the US, Canada and Europe. We enjoyed motorcycle riding, camping and just being together. My beloved Doug passed away in 2014 from ALS. We had been married 49 years. I have a very warm spot in my heart for Andrew since it prepared us for our future and brought the two of us together. The education was top notch and the love I found was never ending.

My husband, Gilbert E. Conn Jr. ’64 and I met at Andrew in November 1963. We married in May 1965 and celebrated our 51st wedding anniversary this last May 2016. We have two married children and five grandchildren. We have returned to Andrew many times in the past years. Thank you for the white rocking chairs on the lower porch. What a joy to unwind and breathe in the essence of Andrew once in a while!

Submitted by Michael S. Meyer von Bremen:  My late parents met at Andrew. Mom (Bobbie L. Kirksey ’56) was a student there in 1955-56.  My Dad, Volkmar “Mike” (Mike was a nickname they gave him as no one could pronounce Volkmar) Meyer von Bremen (back then I think he shortened it to just “Meyer”) had come to the United States under an Exchange Program, spending a year at “Lindbergh Tech” in Americus where he was an exchange student studying aircraft engineering. His sister was a Fulbright Scholar on Rotary Scholarship the year before at UGA. She helped set up the Exchange. After his year was over, he arranged for one more year at Norman Park College – then an all “boys’ school.”  One afternoon the boys from Norman Park piled into a car to go meet the “girls” at Andrew College. Mom caught Dad’s eye (he said sitting in the dorm window) and Dad, especially his heavy accent, caught mom’s. They fell in love quickly as the stars definitely lined up. By July of 1956 they were married and they remained happily married until Dad’s death in 1999, 43 years later. Dad, by the way, about three decades ago, did the design work for a facelift on the Administration Building. I always joked with some folks in Randolph County during my political career that but for Andrew College and the fact that they met there, I would not have been born—which may have been a good thing for some.

Hi! My husband and I met at Andrew in 1985 and will soon be celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary.

I married my college sweetheart and fellow 1978 Andrew graduate Claire Waldhour Braswell back in 1984. We have four children: Sarah is completing a Master’s Degree in Molecular Biology at Georgia Southern; Luke is a Southern Baptist pastor in Millen, GA; Anna graduated from SCAD in June 2017 and is doing an internship with MGM in Los Angeles; and Mary Esther graduated from Duke with a Masters in Medical Physics in May 2017. We have one grandchild, Eli, through our son Luke and his wife Brianne. I retired from South Georgia State College in 2014, and Claire is teaching first grade at Broxton Elementary.

My husband and I met the day I arrived at Andrew from New Jersey back in September 1975! My mother and my sister both said, “there goes Doris’ husband” as he eagerly volunteered to carry my two heavy footlockers to the second floor of Rhodes Hall! We have been married for 38 years, we have two beautiful daughters, and our first daughter is getting married in May! We have been very blessed throughout the years and we will always remember our time at Andrew College!