One day in early 2008 during lunch at DeWitt High School, I noticed a cute girl (who has now been my wife for over a decade) sitting with a pair of coconut shell halves sitting in front of her. I assumed that the only reason a fellow student would have coconut shells with them was if they were a fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail -- for those not familiar, the film is an intentionally low-budget comedic take on the story of King Arthur and his squire Patsy, and instead of actual horses they had Patsy clack two halves of a coconut together to make the sound of galloping. So, assuming that this person must be a fan of Monty Python, I yelled "Come, Patsy!" and the girl immediately leapt to her feet with the coconuts and we galloped down the hall and back together. After that we both laughed, I thanked her, she sat back down with her friends, and I sat back down with mine.

Shortly thereafter, around Valentine's Day, DeWitt's National Honors Society did a "Data Match" fundraiser where all students would fill out a survey, submit it, and then the company would send back compatibility results, and the NHS students would sell the compatibility results during lunch. As an NHS student, I was selling the results at lunch, and one of the people I sold the results to was a girl named Theresa, who I recognized as having been the coconut girl! It turns out, I was in the "most compatible" section for her, and she was in mine as well.

Several months later, we had spent the summer talking over AOL Instant Messenger (ah, the days of AIM...), and we decided to meet up to hang out at the DeWitt Ox Roast. We didn't officially start dating until around the time of the Fall Homecoming dance, but we've been inseparable since. When we got married, current DeWitt teacher Eder DeLaCruz was the DJ at our wedding, and former DeWitt teacher Jeremy VanHof did our wedding photography. We still live in DeWitt, and we have a 4-year-old daughter who will be attending DeWitt schools.