Our story begins long before college. Kevin had a crush on Nicole in elementary school, but Nicole sadly moved away after fifth grade. Little did we know we would meet again as sophomores in college! We met purely by chance, or as some call it, fate. Kevin was bouncing at a local watering hole (RIP Johnny O’s), and we instantly recognized each other when Nicole handed over her ID. We exchanged numbers and vowed to catch up soon. Our first date was at the Memorial Union Terrace, overlooking the water and updating each other on the last eight years of our lives. The rest is history, and after eight years of dating, we got engaged! Three years later, we got married in Madison, a city that has always been special to us both. After lots of moving around, we now live in Wisconsin and still enjoy the occasional Badger football game! On, Wisconsin!
Kevin Mitchell ’15 & Nicole Mitchell ’14
Mary was working part-time at the student infirmary. She had come to the UW to get her arts and science degree in ward management. I was a grad student in the infirmary following an operation on a torn knee cartilage. Mary’s first medication for me was the first of a series of postoperative prophylactic tail shots of penicillin. She administered it with little conversation; we both knew the drill. Subsequently, I noted to a doctor my history of a light allergic reaction to penicillin. On Mary’s second rounds, she came breezing in with an erythromycin pill, a glass of water and a playfully accusatory, “Chicken!” We were married 18 months later, the beginning of a wonderful 68-year experience, with two wonderful children, now newly retired.
Benjamin Johnson PhD’56 & Mary Anderson-Johnson ’54
On a spring night in 1993 at the Cardinal Bar, I heard someone call my name through the crowd. When I turned, there was Jena. We caught up briefly before heading home. The following week, I was climbing a stairwell in the Humanities Building when I rounded a corner and nearly ran into her. We laughed at the coincidence, walked together, and talked longer this time. Then, surprisingly, it happened again just days later. By that third encounter, something had changed; it seemed like the universe had a plan. Two years later, we were married.
David Pagac ’95 & Jena Giese-Pagac ’96
We met in the spring of 2019 shortly before Derek graduated. The first time we met, we realized that we had been doing research in WIMR [Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research] in labs right next to each other for years without ever connecting. We had even been in some of the same classes! When we were first dating in the summer of 2019, we spent a lot of time playing ultimate frisbee in MUFA, hiking around Devil's Lake, and enjoying pitchers at the Terrace. Luckily Derek stayed around Madison for work while Raman finished her senior year. … We got married last year and are maintaining a long-distance marriage while we finish our respective degrees. Going back to Wisconsin to visit family and go to Badger games is one of our favorite fall activities. We’ve made it to a Badger game almost every year since graduating. The UW still holds a special place in our heart, and we are both proud Badgers!
Derek Jacobs ’19 & Ramandeep Gill ’20
We met freshman year in 2012, on campus, like so many Badger stories begin. She was spending late nights studying at College Library and needed someone to walk her back to the dorm. I couldn’t say no. She thought she was asking for a study partner. I, apparently, was already auditioning for a life partner. What started as shared walks and quiet conversations quickly became something more. We fell in love, almost without noticing the exact moment it happened. From then on, we became each other’s best friend and biggest fan, growing side by side through classes, seasons, and all the small moments that make college unforgettable. After graduation, life took us in different directions, and we spent years doing long distance. It wasn’t easy, but it made one thing very clear: wherever we were, we belonged together. So, on a trip to Rhode Island, I finally asked the question. I’ve stood on big stages and accepted awards, but I have never been more nervous than when I pulled out that diamond ring. She said yes. In 2025, we became husband and wife. At our wedding, these words were read: that long before the vows, the real marriage had already been happening. In late-night talks, long walks, car rides, and meals shared. In all the sentences that began with “when we’re married” and all the unspoken promises that lived quietly in our hearts. Those words perfectly captured us. From that first walk home from College Library to the commitment we share today, our story has been built on choosing each other, again and again. What began on campus as two students walking through the night became a lifetime of “I will,” “you will,” and “we will. “And it all started at UW–Madison.
Zhaohui Yang ’16 & Fangying Huang ’16
We met in the dining room of Carroll Hall, a privately run dorm on the shore of Lake Mendota, in September 1969. I was starting Law School, and Peter was studying for a PhD in African history. Our relationship deepened the following academic year, when we shared an apartment in Devine Tower. After graduation, I worked for a court in Massachusetts, and Peter worked for a stamp magazine in Ohio, but on vacations we traveled together in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America. By 1980, we both had jobs with the federal government in Washington, D.C., and have lived together in Silver Spring ever since. We have now been together for nearly 55 years.
Richard Howe JD'72 & Peter Koffsky MA'69 PhD'77
We sat just a few rows apart as students in Environmental Studies 306 one year before we met. On our first date, we walked down State Street to the Memorial Union (where we skipped ice cream because we were too nervous) and around campus. We spent our senior year together nonstop, sometimes attending each other’s lectures and working at the Badger Herald together. Three and a half years later, Ethan proposed while re-creating our first date — complete with a stop for ice cream — at the gazebo in the Botany Garden on University Avenue. The Badger game had just let out, and they marched past playing “Sweet Caroline” five minutes later! We’ll be married at the Aldo Leopold Nature Center in 2027.
Caroline Crowley '23 & Ethan Wright '23
I had lived my entire life in Korea and was about to transfer into the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an undergraduate. Everything about life in the U.S. — and studying there — was completely new to me, and I was desperately looking for someone to ask questions and get advice from. Around that time, I met Jongho online. He had been studying at UW–Madison, returned to Korea to complete his military service, and was preparing to come back to Madison as a returning student. By coincidence, we discovered that we had grown up in the same neighborhood in Korea. We had lived there for years without ever meeting — but somehow, UW–Madison brought us together. We met in person to talk about school and life in Madison, and before we knew it, hours had passed. The conversation flowed effortlessly. Not long after, we became a couple. In the summer of 2008, we arrived in Madison together — I as a new transfer student and Jongho as a returning Badger. That was the beginning of our campus couple life. We studied side by side in Memorial Library, often looking a bit disheveled during intense study sessions, then took breaks by Lake Mendota with ice cream to clear our heads. On snowy winter nights, we even went sledding down the hill next to Elizabeth Waters Hall using rice bags. As a side note, we learned early on that Helen C. White Library was not our place. — we somehow always ended up arguing there, so we avoided it whenever possible.Time passed, and Jongho graduated first with degrees in accounting, including his master’s. I stayed on campus longer, pursuing a double major in food science and entomology. To stay close to me, Jongho began an internship in Chicago and eventually started working there. Until I graduated, we maintained our relationship by riding the bus back and forth between Madison and Chicago. A year after my graduation, we got married and settled in Chicago. Since then, our family has grown — we now have a 10-year-old son and a dog. Living not too far from Madison allows us to visit whenever we miss it. Our son loves hearing stories about our memories tucked into different corners of campus, and he has grown to love Madison, too. We often say how grateful we are to have spent some of our brightest and most formative years together on such a beautiful campus. We shared young, innocent love — but just as importantly, we remember each other as we were during those intense years of building our futures. Thanks to UW–Madison, we are a couple rich in memories, carrying a lifetime of stories that began as Badgers.
Hyojung Jin '13 & Jongho Son '10 MS'11
Jan Barberie, a freshman from Illinois, and Neil Payne, a senior from Wisconsin, met when her sorority (Kappa Delta) and his fraternity (Alpha Delta Phi) collaborated in the annual UW Humorology skit competition, with Jan as the choreographer. They called their friendship “the mutual admiration society.” Neil jokes now that he asked Jan then, “Will you marry me in 25 years?” To the month, 25 years later in January 1986, they married each other, having gone their separate ways and marriages with three kids each, both Jan and Neil college professors, she in nursing, he in wildlife ecology. Retired, they live winters in Florida and summers in Wisconsin and in Newfoundland, where Neil once worked. Every summer, they return to the UW campus for their “nostalgia walk”: Langdon Street, State Street, Union Terrace, lake front, Bascom Hill. In January 2011, their kids gave them a surprise anniversary gift for 25/50 years: married 25 years, friends 50 years. Jan and Neil reported to a hotel in Madison and awaited the limousine assigned to them. With each stop, the driver gave them a card mentioning the next stop: Capitol Building, Edgewater Hotel, old KD house, old Alpha Delt house, Union, Bascom Hill, Brathaus, Paisan’s. Afterward in the hotel, Neil asked Jan emotionally, “What just happened!?”
Neil Payne '61 & Janis Payne '64
We met the first week of our freshman year, which was September 1953. The social chairmen of our respective dorms arranged an ice-breaker social mixer in the basement of Adams Hall that involved two decks of cards. The boys chose a card from a deck, and the girls did the same. We had to find the person who drew the same card. We matched with the ace of hearts, and our adventure began! We married four years later, and except for a brief stint in the army, we have lived in Madison all our married life, and of course we are big Badger fans. Two years ago, while on a family vacation, our grandchildren disappeared for an afternoon. That evening they surprised us by revealing they had all gotten a tattoo of the ace of hearts. … The legend lives on!
Karen Zilavy '74 & Tom Zilavy '57
Because of the way we met, you might think that Mike would be the last person that I would have married. … Coincidentally, Mike and I both had rooms on the fifth floor, at opposite ends of the hall. We first encountered each other as we rode the elevator up to our floor one day, and I pointed out that we were both wearing Penn State shirts. He snarled back that he “didn’t go there,” and I told my roommate about the [rude] neighbor I had just met in the elevator! Mike must have been having a bad day, because as it turned out, he was the nicest person I had ever known. We had a mock “wedding” to each other that Halloween but really got to know each other playing ping pong every evening in the basement of Randall Tower. By the beginning of 1980, we were dating, and by early summer we were engaged. We were married on August 8, 1981, and will have been married 45 years in 2026 — all thanks to the UW!
Margaret Procario '82 & Michael Procario '86
It was 1958. I was a senior, and Sue was a freshman, taking the same botany class. She couldn’t tell an oak from a maple, but that didn’t matter. … I was smitten! After graduation and two years with Uncle Sam, we were married. We just celebrated our 65th anniversary. Still going strong!
Mike Gregg '58 MBA'63 & Sue Gregg '61
Cindy was selected as my "surprise heckler" in EPD 275 Technical Presentations class in 1992. The assignment was to deliver a live presentation and, at some point, someone unknown to you would do their best to interrupt your flow. The goal was to keep going despite the distraction. About halfway through my talk, Cindy began having a loud, fake coughing fit, spilled an entire pitcher of water on the floor and began to slowly clean it up, loudly squeaking her Chuck Taylors across the wet floor, and she went back-and-forth to get paper towel. She didn't steal my focus, but she stole my heart. A friendship was born, and in January 2026 we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.
David Levin '95 & Cynthia Changyit Levin '94
I was a sophomore living in Elm Drive C, and Nancy was a freshman living in Chadbourne Hall. The social chairman on each of our floors went to the same high school in Fond du Lac. They decided to set up a blind-date dinner party in December 1963. They matched up guys and gals according to height, with the girls in heels. That’s how I met Nancy. We were married one week after I graduated in January 1966. On January 29, 2026, we celebrated 60 years together.
Jim Rattmann '66 & Nancy Rattmann '80, '85
I like to tell the story that, technically, my parents met her before I did. They happened to be climbing up the stairs in Adams Hall a minute before me during move-in 2006, and she was in the hallway by chance. They said polite hellos to each other, and then I met her. I was a junior, she was a sophomore, and we hit it off right away with mutual interests in anti-war protests, science fiction, and video games. Being on the same floor of Adams was convenient! We dated for a few months that year, then parted ways (mostly) mutually when she studied abroad in Chile her junior year. I went off to work with Iraqi refugees in Jordan from 2008 to 2010. We maintained a Skype-based friendship throughout. After I returned, we started dating again in 2011 and never looked back!
Zach Heise '08 & Christine Esche '09
We met through a mutual friend in the dorms — I was in Chadbourne, the mutual friend was in Sellery, and my now-husband was living off campus in an apartment. We knew of each other but didn't spend much time together the first year. In my sophomore year, which was his senior year, we both unknowingly signed up for the same class in Bascom Hall, Classical Mythology. One day, within the first few weeks of the semester, we noticed each other in lecture and ended up talking after class. From that day on, we sat next to each other in class, wrote papers together, and studied for the exams together. We started spending time together outside of class and discovered we both had another strong love, playing and watching sports — specifically, the Badgers. Soon enough, we were dating and stayed together even when he graduated and moved across the state. We got married five years later and have now been married for 12 years with two beautiful boys.
Kate Hattery-Groskopf '09 & Brian Groskopf '07
Ebbs and I first met in the fall of 2018, when we started our master’s at UW–Madison. We were in the same program, taking almost the same classes and working in the same lab, our desks right next to each other. What began as classmates and lab colleagues soon turned into a close friendship. Long bike rides along Madison’s scenic trails, kayaking on its endless lakes, cooking get-togethers, and stargazing during COVID deepened our bond, and by the time we graduated in the summer of 2020, our friendship had grown into something more. Four years later, in June 2024, we got married, and in August, we returned to Madison — the place where it all began. This city will always hold a special place in our hearts.
Hiba Jalloul '20 & E. Jalloul '20
We met at SOAR in 2018 and immediately hit it off, but living on opposite sides of the campus and in different majors made it difficult to stay in contact — until her roommates and my roommates became friends, and for the next two years we were each other’s best friend. Our senior year, we decided to finally go on a date, and we were engaged shortly after graduation in 2022. After I finished my degree at La Follette in 2024 (she supported me through it), we are finally getting married this year before she applies to PA school!
Ryan Thiele '22, MS'24 & Lauryn Dominick '22
I was a freshman at the UW, and my husband was a senior and captain of the UW football team when I was a freshman. My parents never missed a game, so I had seen Pat on the program that they brought home. I was introduced to Pat because my parents asked some of the Badger fans who he was and that they had someone (me) who wanted to meet him. … And the rest is history. Neither one of us had dated anyone ever again. … All of our children graduated from Wisconsin as well.
Jill Levenhagen
Sukriti and I met in the fall of 2014 at a camping trip organized by the Indian Graduate Student Association, just one week before grad school began. Our friendship grew quickly over shared interests, and we kept finding ways to hang out at street fests, over quick lunches between classes or coffee to fuel late-night study sessions. Four years after that first meeting, I proposed on a Hoofers sailboat. Today, we’ve been happily married for eight years and are enjoying life with our six-month-old daughter and two adorable cats.
Swapnil Haria MS'18 PhD'19 & Sukriti Singh MS'16
