Blushing Badgers – 1960s

Badgers know that Cupid’s bow shoots missiles tipped with Motion W–shaped arrowheads. Students find chemistry with each other while sharing a Bunsen burner, or they make sweet music during a trombone lesson. We asked you readers to share tales of where love found you while you were on campus, and your responses brought an ear-splitting chorus of “Awwww…” We have space to reproduce only a fraction of what we received, which should still be enough to send the dial on the romance-o-meter spinning.

In this update, Badger grads of the ’60s share tales of campus romance. Check out the links below for stories from other decades.

I met my wife to-be, Janet Brunelle Wolfe ‘66, in 1962, at the University YMCA Orientation Camp. The camp was located on a beautiful Lake Mendota site, across from the University. She was an innocent freshman, and I was a guitar-playing, sophomore counselor. She pledged Alpha Phi and I was already a Phi Delt. We reconnected at an orientation camp reunion, later in the fall. The rest is history!

It was back in 1960 and we were standing in a line to pick up our Badgers at the Union. He [Lee Rudolph ’61] was with two other guys. We didn’t exchange names, which makes it interesting. He did know that I lived in Liz Waters. He managed to locate my picture and name in the Badger and called and asked me for a date. I wasn’t sure which one of the three guys was calling so we had to talk awhile so I could be sure I was talking to the one that I thought was so good looking. Well, he was THE one and still is after 53 years of marriage.

In August, 1960, the University YMCA sponsored a Freshman orientation camp at what is now Governor Nelson State Park outside Middleton. Because I had been a camp counselor at several camps and was entering my junior year, I was asked to be a counselor. I hesitated because I had just finished a summer of youngsters, but realized that there would be lots of young ladies entering UW and I would be able to meet and greet them. There was this one very attractive young lady with glasses who flirted a bit (although she later confessed initially thinking I was obnoxious) and then ignored me. I saw her walking on Bascom Hill some weeks later, asked her out and married her in 1962. Iʼm not sure what she thinks of me today, but Sally [Kehl] and I celebrated our 52nd anniversary in June 2014.

We met at Pine Hall the summer of 1962 playing bridge. We have been married for 51 years.

Had my eye on the guy [Stephen Sweet ’63, LLB’65] who worked at the Triangle Superette on State St. right down the block from my freshman/ sophomore home at Gilman House. I was smitten! It turned out his parents had owned the store since the mid 1930’s.  We have been married 49 years and are hoping that our grandchildren will make us four generations of Badgers!

It was spring semester 1966 and I was a transfer student staying in Cole Hall. It all started with a "mixer" hosted by Sullivan Hall across the courtyard. A spark was ignited and a romance begun, possibly fed by the prime portions of pie I arranged as he [Donald Heinecke '70]

came through the line at Holt Commons. In a wink the romance blossomed during the walks along the lake path and especially some special moments at Picnic Point. Now that we're in our metallic years--silver in our hair, gold in our teeth, and lead in our pants--we still reminisce about those blushing Badger blessings. And we're still soul mates after all these years.

We both grew up in different towns in Illinois, and were attending UW, but had never met. In the fall of 1962 Wisconsin won the Big 10 title and was on the way to the January 1, 1963 Rose Bowl game. Somehow destiny put us on the same Wisconsin Student Trip bus heading for Pasadena--a 48 hour day and night trip.  As with all Badgers, refreshments and mingling broke out as soon as the sun set on the first night and a rolling party ensued, and we met somewhere in Nebraska (I think -- but then that night was kind of fuzzy). We had our first date the night we arrived in Pasadena, spent the entire Rose Bowl trip together (much to the chagrin of our  initial travel partners), went together through the rest of our UW days, married in Madison, and will soon celebrate our 50th anniversary.

We met in Sept. 1966 as we wandered in Sterling Hall looking for a way to find the Astronomy class on the 6th floor of a 4-floor building (there were 4 floors in the front part of Sterling and 6 floors in the back).  We became engaged by the Chamberlain Rock near Washburn Observatory on Observatory Hill in May 1967 and were married in Sept. 1967.  On Wisconsin!

John D. Truesdale ’64 and Jean Laak Truesdale ’66 will celebrate their 50^th wedding anniversary in January. They met at a social event hosted by Alpha Delta Phi and Alpha Phi. John served as the first Director of Disabled Student Services at UW-Whitewater and as the first coach of the Warhawks Wheelchair Basketball team. Jean was an elementary teacher and retired from the Kettle Moraine School District in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. They have two daughters, Elizabeth Truesdale Witek ’87 and Law ’90, and Sara Truesdale Mooney ’95. Jean enjoys taking one of their four grandchildren to UW’s Grandparents University every summer. John and Jean maintain a home in Whitewater but dodge the Polar Vortex in Fort Myers.

I met my husband [George Shinners ’61 MS’64] of 50 1/2 years at Vilas Park. He was a house fellow (chaperone). I was living in Liz Waters. We had a picnic with his dorm, a Kronshage unit.

Jay Mayesh ’69 and Leslie Haupt Mayesh ’69 met at the K.K. (a campus watering hole of yore), followed closely by a series of study breaks in the Memorial Library and coffee breaks at Rennebohm’s (iconic forerunner combo of Starbucks and CVS) in 1966, never dated another soul, married in 1969, remain so today and shall always love the UW era of our lives and each other.

Jim Barager and Teena (Van Horne) Barager ’70 met while visiting veterans at the VA Hospital on campus in April of their sophomore year (1967).  Two and half years later they were married at St Francis House on campus and celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary in St Kitts this year.  Following Jim's 30-year career in the Air Force, Jim and Teena worked together for the past 15 years in their wealth management company which they sold in 2014 and are now transitioning into full retirement.

Lynn Grossmann Preizler ’67 and I met in 1964 in room 220 at the UW Library across from the Red Gym.  We had our first date fifty years ago on November 6, 1964.  We’ve were married in 1968 and have three children (two are UW-Madison grads) and 5 beautiful grandchildren. I received a BS and MA from UW-Madison.  I have served as a member of the Dept. of Sociology Board of Visitors.  We live in Madison and are loyal Badger fans.

I met my campus love [William Shepherd '69, '72 JD] at-- where else?!-- a favorite "beer bar."  It was a Thursday evening in December 1968, when I went with some of my housemates to the Amber Grid (nicknamed "HT") located on University Avenue across from the old hospital. The place was packed with others looking for weekend dates. My "campus love" and I literally bumped into each other, started talking and went on a date the next night to a UW hockey game. We were married in August 1971, while my husband was in law school.  Our three children are also proud UW-Madison graduates!

When I first met my boyfriend (now husband [Richard Kozarek ’69, MD’73]) he was on a tight budget.  He would buy one package of bologna for the week, two slices per day on bread for five sandwiches Monday through Friday.  On Thursdays, we would meet at the rock on Observatory Hill for lunch.  He would bring lunch--a sandwich for each of us.  Little did I know then, that that meant he didn't have a sandwich for Friday. We have now been together for 45 years.  When I visit Madison I always drive by the "rock" and remember our early days together.

My husband [Terrence Hefty ’69, MA’72] and I met outside the school of business building (the old one on Bascom hill) my third week of school in 1966.  I was so excited – he was a junior and wanted to date me, a lowly freshman.  (Actually, I was sitting outside the school of business hoping to run into someone else I was sort of dating at the time).  We dated fairly regularly that first year and by the end of my junior year, 1969, we were married.  We still are happily together after 45 years of marriage and our daughter, who also attended UW school of business, is now a partner in my husband’s Asset Management firm.  I couldn’t be more proud of both of them.

Our hangout was his frat house, Alpha Chi Rho just down the street from my dorm Anne Emory.  Being a dance major and having to rehearse late into the night, we didn’t get a chance to see each other very much during the week.  So the weekend was spent at football games and parties.  Once we married, we lived in Middleton while he played soldier in the National Guard and then finished his graduate degree while I taught at Memorial High School.  We moved to Colorado in 1972 and have been here ever since.  We still love UW and visit our alma mater at least once a year.

We met singing Christmas carols around a grand piano at the annual volunteer party at the University Catholic Center (St. Paul's) on State Street in December 1967. We enjoyed Badger sports, especially hockey, Hoofers ski club, concerts at Music Hall, painting on the construction fence around the Humanities Building, study dates at the Medical Library, and have been married for 43 years.

My husband, Walt, and I met in January 1968.  We met as Zoology lab partners, and were astonished as we discovered that we would see each other every day of the week for that entire semester!  The lab met two days a week; we also found ourselves in the same lecture section (Zoology was taken by a huge number of students; there were multiple lecture sections and many labs). Then we also found ourselves attending the same Medieval History course! As fate would have it, that semester was the only time during our years at UW that we shared that much time with each other, or with any other student.

Our first date was the day after Valentine's Day--we went to view 'The Graduate' with Dustin Hoffman.  I remember thinking that it was an incredibly risqué movie for a first date :) We married in Madison, Wisconsin in June 1971. Married life has taken us to Illinois, Maryland, and now to retirement in North Carolina.  And we often talk about how incredibly formative our UW days were in shaping our lives and the people we have become.