Raider Romance

A lot happens during your college years that affects the rest of your life. You make an initial career choice, figure out how to handle your own money, and learn to avoid laundering reds with whites. For some, college is where you meet your other half—the one you’ll marry and raise kids with—the person who, more than any other, may encourage you, aggravate you, and teach you what commitment truly means.

Most Northwestern alumni didn’t meet their spouse on campus. But hopefully what they learned in this community prepared them to be a faithful, thoughtful partner, friend and family member. Some—just over 3,000—did connect here. Several of their heartwarming stories follow.

Send in the Clown

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have involved my mother [Karen (De Boer ’79) Woudstra] in my proposal plans.

With her flair for drama, she convinced me I should scheme to surprise my future bride. So at her suggestion, I arranged for friends to “kidnap” Kyndara [Hardersen ’03] from her job as parking attendant at a football game and deliver her to where I was waiting with an intimate bonfire and a diamond.

It was Halloween and only six weeks after 9/11, so when Kyndara’s supervisor witnessed several guys throw a blanket over her head and shove her in a car, he became alarmed and called maintenance director Scott Simmelink. (Scott notified the authorities and then chased—for miles—what eventually turned out to be the wrong car.)

Meanwhile, a highway patrolman had located my parents in NWC’s snack bar and told them: “Your son’s girlfriend has been kidnapped!” My mom, who happened to be wearing a clown costume at the time, explained the hostage situation was a false alarm and came to find me so I could return to campus and apologize to everyone I had terrified.

Thankfully, I’d already popped the question by the time Bozo showed up.

Brandon Woudstra ’03
ORANGE CITY, IOWA

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Compatibility

Jonathan and I met through the Compatibility Quest student activity Northwestern does every January. I opened my results, looked at the name on top of the list and asked rather loudly, “Who on earth is Jonathan Handsaker?” Turns out he was standing right next to me.

Bethany (Harms ’08) Handsaker
MITCHELL, S.D.

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Sucking Up

“Hey, Wacker!” (I prefer “Amy,” but guys love to use your last name when you’re fortunate enough to be a Wacker.) “Wouldja bring your Dust Buster over? We need some serious help here.” My high school classmates—living in Coly without their mothers’ vacuuming skills for the first time in their lives—knew they could count on me.

As I was walking back to North Hall [now Stegenga] swinging my Dust Buster at my side, an athletic guy I recognized from Intro. to Studio jogged by and quipped, “Nice Dust Buster.”

Two hours later we were still standing in front of Christ Chapel. This guy was so easy to talk to, so funny, so charming. While he zapped any bugs that entered the no-fly zone around us with my Dust Buster, he shared bits of his values and faith journey with me. I had to tear myself away, and when I did, I left with that feeling—that oh-my-goodness-this-must-be-how-it-feels-to-meet-THE-ONE feeling.

Kyle [Hutchinson ’01] later confessed he’d had his eye on me since I’d critiqued his landscape in front of our entire art class. When he saw me in Coly with my Dust Buster, he took off on a dead run around the north side of the chapel to “bump” into me on my way back to my dorm.

Amy Wacker-Hutchinson ’02
IOWA FALLS, IOWA

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Loved Her Laugh

My wife and I met the first day of my senior and her freshman year. I was helping my roommate, Mark Heijerman [’78], lead a freshman orientation session about Chi Rho, a campus group for students interested in ministry. The weather was warm, the windows were open, and when another senior, Ruth Zwald [’78], walked by outside, Mark and I teased her, bellowing, “Ruuuuth!” One of our orientation participants, Ruth Korver [’81], laughed loudly in response, which caught my attention—and kept it.

Dave Landegent ’78
HOLLAND, MICH.

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Spirited Courtship

Mari [Miyagi ’02] and I had been friends until our senior year. Then I received an impression from God that I should choose Mari for my lifetime partner.

We were chatting online one evening when, with the power of the Holy Spirit, I asked Mari out. She thought I was joking, so I messaged again, asking her to accompany me on a walk to Veterans Park. During the walk we enjoyed chitchat about our campus life, and at the end, I asked Mari if we could go steady. She said no.

It was shocking to me that she rejected my request. I believed she would not reject me if she came to know the truth that I wanted to share my life with her.

Awhile later, I called her and asked her to take a walk with me again. During this walk, I told her I wanted to marry her. So finally the moment came for me to ask, “Will you marry me?” She replied, “Yes.” It was a most exciting and joy-filled moment. Lord have mercy, we were able to skip going steady and become engaged!

Taku Nakajima ’02
HYOGO, JAPAN

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Love-All

Dad [Steve Bolda ’81] was playing tennis behind the Union [now Hospers Hall], where mom [Jodi Bosma ’82] lived on the second floor. From her window she heckled the cute tennis player. Sometime later they were both in Union’s basement game room, and he asked her if she was the heckler. She admitted she was. A week later he asked her out, and it’s been love ever since.

Rebecca Bolda ’10
WAUPUN, WIS.

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Winning Bid

From the time Abby [Stevens ‘01] met me after I transferred to Northwestern, she’d been saying she knew a guy who was perfect for me. But after a two-year hiatus from college, this time I was focused and determined to finish without distractions.

When Abby approached me about an upcoming campus bachelor auction, I wanted no part of it. Nonetheless, Abby convinced me she would bid on our friend, Bob [Reitz ’03], and I should bid on his roommate, Noah [Metz ’02]—the guy. We would double-date—very casually.

Auction night I hid behind a post and communicated my bids to Abby. I was embarrassed—but also competitive. Apparently someone else also wanted a date with Noah. I whispered higher and higher bids to Abby: $35 … $45 … $55 … $75! Sold! I ran off to finish my homework before he even had a chance to meet me.

By date night, I was so nervous I backed into another car before we’d even left campus. (We still joke things started out with a bang.) After dinner and a movie, Noah and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning just talking, and for the next several days we were nearly inseparable.

Not long after, when I told my mom about the auction and its aftermath, she asked, jokingly, if I was going to marry this guy. When I answered, I was serious: “Yes.”

Sarah (Anderson ’03) Metz
MARTINEZ, CALIF.

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Sparks

I was walking from West Hall to DeBoer House when I noticed friends talking with a guy in the parking lot that used to be between West and Heemstra. The guy was David Wynn [’96], and from the back I thought he looked like a very skinny guy with an afro. I strode over, started yakking, and he thought I was a mouthy little punk who was going to be trouble. But by the end of the week we were arguing like cats and dogs—and dating. We’ve been keeping each other on our toes ever since.

Kay (Hekter ’97) Wynn
AUSTIN, MINN.

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Finding Direction

A month into my junior year, I was unsure what I wanted to do with my life and was ready to quit college. My cafeteria supervisor knew I was floundering and encouraged me to pursue an open food service job at another college. The job was mine if I wanted it; I had two weeks to decide.

That weekend I attended a Student Christian Fellowship retreat, and at the opening night mixer, I had to find someone with the same number of siblings as me. I come from a family of seven kids. I had little hope of locating anyone from a family as large as mine, until I heard someone calling, “Seven, seven!”

“Seven” was a vivacious, dark-haired beauty from North Dakota, Evy Van Bruggen [’74]. I lost track of her as the game continued, but later that night, walking by myself and contemplating my future, someone came up behind me and asked, “Can I walk with you?”

That beginning led to a journey that’s lasted 38 years so far. Throughout the weekend, Evy and I talked, laughed, cried and searched the road ahead. By the time we returned to campus, I was still unsure of my future, but I had a reason to stay at Northwestern.

The Rev. Phil Somsen ’73
FORT DODGE, IOWA

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Cradle Raider

I didn’t attend Northwestern, but my husband, Matt [Trost ’99], did. We met the summer after my freshman year of high school, and I thought it was so cool to be dating a college guy. For the next three years, Matt came to my high school cross country meets and I cheered at his college baseball games. After one spring Saturday game, he escorted me to prom. Although he got a lot of flak from his teammates for going to prom as a college senior, he took it like a pro.

Erin Trost
POLK CITY, IOWA

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Friese, Thaw

Steve [Friese ’03] recalls one cold night during a dance in Alton when he locked eyes with me for only a moment, but it was a moment and memory that reminds him of God’s provision. From that instant, God gave him the courage to pursue me in the face of initial rejection.

I loved life as a freshman, experiencing everything college had to offer, and I made it clear to Steve many times I was in no mood to date anyone. Nonetheless, not only did Steve fall in love with me that night, but his roommate fell in love with my friend. Hanging out with my friend and her boyfriend meant I was around Steve nearly every day after that night, and eventually I realized the comfort I felt around him wasn’t the warmth you feel with just anyone.

He proposed in a cornfield not far from campus, and we married one week after our mutual friends’ wedding.

Anna (MacKay ’04) Friese
NEW ULM, MINN.

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Sister Knows Best

I met my husband, Blake [Wieking ’08], at Northwestern, but my story is about my sister, Jennifer [Tjeerdsma’04]. Jenny and Brian [Young ‘04] met during freshman orientation; Jenny was walking across campus when a dashing soccer player offered her a lollipop. The two struck up a conversation—and a friendship. When Jenny came home for midterm break, we lay on our bunk beds talking about Brian, and I could tell she had a crush on him. I asked if they were boyfriend and girlfriend. She said, “No, he’s not my boyfriend; he’s just my best boy friend.” I figured they’d be dating shortly.

When I visited Jenny in February and met Brian, I was even more convinced he was the one for her. I started praying Jenny would marry Brian and even wrote in my journal on June 6, 2001: Jennifer Tjeerdsma will marry her best boy friend, Brian Young.

Jenny and Brian remained friends all through college, but I began to wonder if they’d ever start dating, especially when they graduated and Jenny moved to Arizona for graduate school while Brian joined the Peace Corps and headed to Honduras.

Jenny visited Brian in Honduras and came home still just friends. By this time I was thinking, “Brian, come on! She visited you in another country! What more does a girl have to do?” Brian was starting to frustrate me, but I kept praying, “Please, God, let Jenny marry Brian.”

Finally, in 2009, when Brian was back in the U.S., he called my sister and suggested they begin a long-distance dating relationship. Six months later, Brian met Jenny at the airport holding a sign that made her chuckle: “Jennifer Tjeerdsma.”

The next one sent her heart racing: “I have a question.”

And the last one took her breath away: “Will you marry me?”

I told my story of waiting for love at their wedding reception in November and gave them the page from my journal. I thoroughly enjoyed saying what every sister loves to say: “I told you so.”

Kari (Tjeerdsma ’08) Wieking
SIOUX CENTER, IOWA

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Double Take

I was working in Northwestern’s admissions office and hadn’t been dating Mike [Vander Zwaag ’94] long when I saw him walking toward the building. I was nervous about him visiting me at work and asked a colleague what I should do. She said if I really liked him I should go out and greet him with a big smile. So I did, grinning hugely—only to realize it was Mike’s twin brother, Mark. (I had a hard time distinguishing between them if all I saw was a side profile.) I eventually learned to tell them apart easily and married the one who looked like Mike.

Loree (Carlberg ’95) Vander Zwaag
ORANGE CITY, IOWA

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Purposeful Proposal

The night Lisa [Muilenburg ’07] and I became engaged, I carried out a very elaborate proposal with the help of her sister, Carrie [’10], and folks in the NWC residence life and maintenance departments.

After what she thought was a typical date, I led Lisa to the basement of one of the apartment buildings, where she found a blanket, three white candles and pages from a scrapbook. The blanket represented warmth, security and closeness; the candles represented faith and the Trinity; and the scrapbook contained poems, letters and songs I’d been writing to my future wife before I even met Lisa! She read my expressions of love, and we headed to our next stop: the former Bushmer Art Center.

In the Bushmer basement, Lisa found three yellow candles, more scrapbook pages, and a table and chairs. These candles represented hope, and the table and chairs represented the Last Supper. It was important for Christ to eat with his closest friends just hours before his death, and I wanted Lisa to know that sharing a meal together creates a sacred space. I read more from Song of Solomon, and we headed to Maurice, Iowa—to Lisa’s home church (where I had been a youth ministry intern).

In the place that had helped shape Lisa into the woman I now loved, by the light of three red candles representing love, I washed her feet to let her know that that I would, to the best of my ability, seek to serve and love her as Christ does. As I was already kneeling, I presented a ring and asked her to be my wife. She said yes, and our celebration included our first kiss.

Ben Vos ’08
SULPHUR SPRINGS, TEXAS

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Seeing Stars

During movie nights in the RSC, it seemed the projector always broke down at some point. On one such occasion, the beautiful girl in front of me turned around and we struck up a conversation. That beauty was my future wife [Heather Brown ’91].

Doug Schorle ’89
ATLANTIC, IOWA

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Crazy Love

The love stories ad in the fall Classic made me laugh. Until recently, I would have felt chagrined by a feature focusing on people who found love at Northwestern since I didn’t meet the love of my life there—except, I did. That is, I first met Blayne at the 2007 Northwestern Gala Auction. I was a member of the Alumni Association and was wearing a yellow hard hat at the time (in keeping with the “Under Construction” auction theme).

A Tabor College graduate, Blayne started following Northwestern basketball after seeing the Raiders play his alma mater during a tournament. So Northwestern’s name caught his eye in a Sioux Falls Argus Leader article about singleness in Sioux Falls. The article featured a Sioux Falls single: me.

The following year, Blayne wandered into Northwestern’s Gala Auction after a basketball game and recognized me as the woman from the article. We talked briefly and even met for dinner. Life and responsibilities intervened, and we didn’t meet again until six months later when I invited him to a New Year’s Eve gathering at my house.

Despite our differences—he likes basketball and watching his crops grow; I like shopping and traveling—there was a connection, and I texted him a few days later. Blayne had never received—or sent—a text message, but he eventually figured out how to send a message back.

Over time we realized we had much more in common than we’d thought, including our core values. Three years from the Argus article’s publication date, we became engaged, and now we’re married.

So I did find love at Northwestern. How crazy is that?!

Tonya (Van Peursem ’94) Brockmueller
SIOUX FALLS, S.D.