On the Cover

Features

An intimate connection

Love, CMU style

Departments

Letters

Take Five
Jeff Daniels visit
Jesse Jackson visit
Brain research
CMU volunteers
Real estate

Discovery
Driving distractions
How seals relate

Sports
A championship year
Jones named new coach

In support
Education building
Faculty learning
Opus gala

Maroon and Gold

Alumni in Action

I Am CMU

Love, CMU style

Jillian and Rob
In the fall of 1989 I transferred to CMU to pursue my education degree, and I arrived in Mount Pleasant before any of my roommates to move into our apartment.

When I noticed a guy breaking into the apartment, I was horrified and took off to call my mom. When I returned after the other girls had arrived, I found out that it was Rob from next door, and he was just trying to see if he could still get in to play pranks on the girls like he did the year before.

Well, Rob graciously offered to walk me to my first class since I did not know where I was going. For two weeks, I admired him and got to know him, and we had our first unofficial date at Nick’s (now an office building on Mission) and have been together ever since.
We have been married for 14 years, have two great kids, and we run a dance studio in Alma.

Jillian DuHadway, ’92
Alma

Joe and June
June Fonger and I met the first day on campus in 1959 in front of Warriner Hall. I remember it as if it were yesterday. Both of us were music majors but didn’t know it then. She said, “Can you tell me how to get to the sheepsheds?” Little did we know that we’d be in many classes together in those very sheepsheds.

We married on April 15, 1966, after a whirlwind romance. OK, not exactly a whirlwind. My memo notes for that day end with “mail tax return, get married.”

Let me back up a bit. I first went to Central in 1956, second semester. I had no money to continue school, so I joined the U.S. Fifth Army Band in Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Five of us formed a jazz ensemble and won our category in the All-Army Entertainment Contest. This exposure gave me the possibility of traveling around the world for a year with an Army touring entertainment group. But I chose not to, because it would have delayed my education, and I would have had to stay in the Army an extra year.

So I went to CMU, where June and I got a great education and each other.

Joe Nelson, ’63
Ada

Julie and Greg
My husband, Greg, and I met in the Towers cafeteria in November 1985. I had been “scoping him out” since the beginning of the year. Finally in the banana split line we started talking. We got engaged in December 1990 and last October 12 we celebrated our 15-year anniversary! We are more in love now than ever before.

Julie (Zimmerman) Root, ’88
Waterford

David and Mary
CMU was always an important part of my life. I spent nine years there in the Training School and later was enrolled for both undergraduate and graduate work, although my degrees came from other institutions.

Mary Eddy and I met at Central in 1946. She was in the middle of her senior year, and I was a hometown Mount Pleasant boy who had just been discharged from the Navy.

A good friend of mine, Bobb Wardrop, was on the Central basketball team, and I went to see him play. We may have made plans to meet after the game, I cannot remember. During the course of the game Bobb got the inspiration to ask Mary, one of the cheerleaders, out after the game and passed a message down the bench to her. She agreed, and Bobb, realizing that I was at loose ends, insisted that I come along and make it a threesome.

That was the first time Mary and I met and the last date she and Bobb ever had. To put the Bobb, Mary, David trio in perspective, Bobb was best man at our wedding in August 1947. Mary and I live in Surfside Beach, South Carolina, and celebrated our 59th anniversary in August. Bobb lives in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and we still get together from time to time.

David Gover
Surfside Beach, South Carolina

Oliver and Mary
I received orders to report to Central Michigan College for the Navy V-12 program. I met Mary at one of the dances at Keeler Union. The minute I saw her I knew I was in love – I should tell her this more often! We married in April 1945 when I was still in the Navy.

Oliver Herzler, ’49
Saginaw

part 6

Jillian and Rob DuHadway