The Lehigh love connection
We received far more than we could print at once, so for your reading enjoyment, here is the first batch of stories. We will publish more in the future, so stay tuned to your Lehigh Alumni Connection.
Amanda (Stone) Greenblatt ‘89
Steve and I met the fall of our senior year in the Christmas Saucon building, prepping for the same job interview for a position at International Paper (neither of us got the offer). That day I called my Mom and said, I met the guy I'm going to marry.
In the months following, I had a huge crush on him and would arrange to be at parties that I knew he’d be going to. In February, I signed up for a GMAT course in Allentown, walked into the first class and there he was! It had to be fate! I invited him to a party that my friends and I were throwing, and finally, after four months of “stalking him, we started dating on the day after Valentine's Day.
Our “dates” included many Wednesday nights having “chips and ranch” and closing down the ‘Ho,' studying together, playing Libya at Sigma Nu (a tradition that we still carry on with our Lehigh friends), and planning for our life after college. After graduation we spent five weeks backpacking through Europe before starting our real jobs in New York City. We got engaged two years later and married the year after that in March 1992.
Since Lehigh, we’ve continued to study together (we both got our MBAs at NYU’s Stern School of Business), and travel (we’ve been back to Europe, Asia, and the Carribean, just to name a few). We are about to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary and live in Summit, N.J., with our five-year-old twins, Scott and Alexis. They often ask us if they have to go to Lehigh to get married…
Leonard S. Dorsett ’56
I did NOT meet my spouse (Sue) at Lehigh, but I did meet her while I was attending Lehigh at a church youth conference. She was a student at Penn State, and the marvel of our budding romance was that it survived some really fierce Lehigh-Penn State wrestling matches at Grace Hall and at Penn State's Rec Hall.
In addition to those wrestling matches, she was a pretty good sport about sitting with me in the Lehigh Band during football games at Packer Stadium. I was a drummer and we usually sat in the first row, directly under the trombones. Between the drum line noise and the leaking trombones, it was sometimes an ordeal for her. She still sits with me in the drum row when we go back for the Alumni Band football game performance each fall. After nearly fifty years, it is a real testament to the power of love.
Gordon R. Rahmes ’49
I had completed only one semester at Lehigh prior to joining the Navy in 1943, but I was inducted into Chi Psi and grew to love Lehigh in that short period of time. In the Pacific in 1945, the squadron commander singled me out to attend Annapolis upon returning to the states following the war. But, as fate would have it, our aircraft had engine problems and after five attempts to solve the carburetor malfunctions, we changed engines in Alameda, Cal., and headed east. We lost the replaced engine over the Rockies and made an emergency landing in Eagle Mountain Lake near Forth Worth, Texas. Jet assistance bottles were flown to help us extradite ourselves from the rather small lake. In the meantime, the deadline for entrance into the Naval Academy was history. The skipper was disappointed, but I wasn't.
After finally being discharged, I returned home in April 1946. My hometown girlfriend, a nurse, invited me to a dinner-dance at the VA Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. At this affair, I sat next to a beautiful girl from Northampton, Pa, also a nurse. As I was leaving with my date, she whispered to me,Northampton 503—her phone number. I returned to Lehigh in June 1946 and on my first night in Bethlehem, I called the number and met her in Allentown. A year later, we were married. We had 42 years of marital bliss before she died of cancer in 1988.
Jessie Peck Martin ’89
I met my husband on a chairlift at Blue Mountain (when it was still called Little Gap). We were both trying out for the ski team. The winter of 1986 brought with it the first year for the Lehigh women's ski team and a spot at Nationals.
Dave was one of those great guy members who sharpened our skis and chauffeured us to the big meet. It was and still is wonderful to have someone to cozy up to on a chilly lift to the top. We still are avid skiers. In the meantime, we've created two little skiers and have a third one on the way. Just this weekend, Dave is in Alta enjoying the powder and I was trekking our two to racing camp. It must have been cold for him on that lift!
Mia Michele (Weis) Weinstein ’88
When I arrived at Lehigh on the first day of freshman year, I went to the UC and discovered that I shared a mailbox with a Louis Weinstein (my maiden name is Weis). In October, a lot of mail was arriving for a Lonny Weinstein and I figured out that it was Lonny's (or Louis's) birthday, so I put a piece of apple pie in the box with a birthday wish.
We finally met face-to-face one day after a Law 11 class when Lonny came up to me and said, Hi, I'm your mailbox mate! He asked me out a couple of times, but we just remained friends until sophomore year when while studying for December exams, we had our first kiss in Linderman Library.
In January, he surprised me on my birthday by showing up on my doorstep, and I thought to myself, This is the most handsome, nicest guy on campus. We started dating and continued through graduation and after. We got married in October 1993 and now live in Stamford, Conn., with our two children, Emily,6 and Edward, 3. Thank you Lehigh!
Edward F. Heller '48
Back in the days before Lehigh went coed, if the Glee Club wanted to do soprano alto tenor bass (SATB) harmony, we had to find a woman's college that had the same need. In my senior year, we invited Beaver College (now Arcadia University) to join us for a concert.
My eyes and ears honed in on their soprano soloist, Phyllis Kline, and I dated her for the rest of the year. Although she was two years younger (as she still reminds me), I popped the question, and she finished her schooling in 1950. We've been harmonizing ever since.
Dominique Edelen Hurley ’85
I met Mark Hurley (class of 85ish) freshman year within the first week or so. The moment I saw him I felt this cosmic thump--a combination of incredible attraction and familiarity at the same time.
As is wise freshman year, I paid no attention to that thump and kept my options open, meeting many wonderful men and having some terrific relationships. From his stories and others', I know he did the same. Still, every time I would run into him on the hill or other places, I always felt that familiarity.
Finally senior year (after a few late night connections and some pitchers of beer at Uncle Manny's), we both decided to let destiny drive for a while and fell crazy in love. We got married in 1989 and have three amazing children. That cosmic thump has persevered through the natural highs and lows of marriage.
Even today, after 18 years, I still look at him across the room at a party and feel that pull. My advice: Listen to your belly in matters of love. It speaks the truth.
Matt Brogowski ’91
My wife Heather and I met in January of our freshman year at Lehigh (1987/88). She lived in Beardslee and I lived in Dravo, but I was pledging Beta at the time. We met while I was postering for a Thursday night pub nite (do they still allow those?) and we hit it off right away. I knew when she actually showed up at the party looking for me that we had made a connection. We dated all of our second semester and through the summer.
Unfortunately, Heather left Lehigh after her freshman year and transferred to Georgia State University in her hometown of Atlanta, where she earned two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree. We continued to date and had huge phone bills (this was before cell phones with their unlimited nights and weekends), and eventually we broke up. We were apart for almost eight years, but kept in touch occasionally with an impromptu call or random visit.
Finally, in 1996, I received a call from her to check up on me and she told me that she was thinking of relocating from Atlanta to another part of the country. After many trips back and forth from New Jersey to Atlanta, I suggested that she move north. She said that she would consider it.
Three months later, I gave her good reason in the form of an engagement ring, and we were married in 1997, almost 10 years after we had first met at Lehigh. We now have a home in New Jersey, our own business, two beautiful daughters (possible future Lehigh classes of 2020 and 2022), and we owe it all to that Thursday night pub nite. Maybe those should be reinstated. What do you think?
Caroline Graf Reich ’81
My husband Joel ('81) and I actually met on the first day of class our freshman year—in an Urban Studies course taught by David Amidon. (Professor Amidon would later take credit for being the catalyst for the relationship and even attended our wedding in June 1981!) That 8 a.m. class was an eye-opener in more ways in one.
We also ended up being in the same freshman English seminar that first semester and began bumping into one another in the music building as Joel went to band practice and I attended choir rehearsals. Soon we were study partners and had declared similar majors.
By spring of our freshman year, romance had blossomed. The engagement ring came early in our junior year, and the wedding took place three weeks after graduation. We've crisscrossed the country together, produced two fine sons, and we've weathered hurricanes, earthquakes, and 27 years of life together, full of challenges and rich rewards. We're still very much in love and we remember with fondness those first wonderful years together on South Mountain.
Marty Lee Sullivan ‘96
As a student at Cedar Crest, I socialized at Lehigh's chapter of TEP, where my future husband Kevin was a brother. We got to know each other as undergrads, but we did not start dating until I was in graduate school at Lehigh. After the 1994 Lehigh-Lafayette game, we bumped into each other at the Tally-Ho and since then, we've made every Lehigh-Lafayette game a tradition. In November of 1999 we got married at Packer Chapel and have chosen to raise our family in Hellertown.
We recently attended a Lehigh wrestling match with our one-year-old son, Mick. While toddling around in his Lehigh sweatshirt, he met a little Lehigh girl who was cheering on the Mountain Hawks in her Lehigh garb. After a hug they parted, but who knows? Look out Class of 2025!
Amanda (Stone) Greenblatt ‘89
Steve and I met the fall of our senior year in the Christmas Saucon building, prepping for the same job interview for a position at International Paper (neither of us got the offer). That day I called my Mom and said, I met the guy I'm going to marry.
In the months following, I had a huge crush on him and would arrange to be at parties that I knew he’d be going to. In February, I signed up for a GMAT course in Allentown, walked into the first class and there he was! It had to be fate! I invited him to a party that my friends and I were throwing, and finally, after four months of “stalking him, we started dating on the day after Valentine's Day.
Our “dates” included many Wednesday nights having “chips and ranch” and closing down the ‘Ho,' studying together, playing Libya at Sigma Nu (a tradition that we still carry on with our Lehigh friends), and planning for our life after college. After graduation we spent five weeks backpacking through Europe before starting our real jobs in New York City. We got engaged two years later and married the year after that in March 1992.
Since Lehigh, we’ve continued to study together (we both got our MBAs at NYU’s Stern School of Business), and travel (we’ve been back to Europe, Asia, and the Carribean, just to name a few). We are about to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary and live in Summit, N.J., with our five-year-old twins, Scott and Alexis. They often ask us if they have to go to Lehigh to get married…
Leonard S. Dorsett ’56
I did NOT meet my spouse (Sue) at Lehigh, but I did meet her while I was attending Lehigh at a church youth conference. She was a student at Penn State, and the marvel of our budding romance was that it survived some really fierce Lehigh-Penn State wrestling matches at Grace Hall and at Penn State's Rec Hall.
In addition to those wrestling matches, she was a pretty good sport about sitting with me in the Lehigh Band during football games at Packer Stadium. I was a drummer and we usually sat in the first row, directly under the trombones. Between the drum line noise and the leaking trombones, it was sometimes an ordeal for her. She still sits with me in the drum row when we go back for the Alumni Band football game performance each fall. After nearly fifty years, it is a real testament to the power of love.
Gordon R. Rahmes ’49
I had completed only one semester at Lehigh prior to joining the Navy in 1943, but I was inducted into Chi Psi and grew to love Lehigh in that short period of time. In the Pacific in 1945, the squadron commander singled me out to attend Annapolis upon returning to the states following the war. But, as fate would have it, our aircraft had engine problems and after five attempts to solve the carburetor malfunctions, we changed engines in Alameda, Cal., and headed east. We lost the replaced engine over the Rockies and made an emergency landing in Eagle Mountain Lake near Forth Worth, Texas. Jet assistance bottles were flown to help us extradite ourselves from the rather small lake. In the meantime, the deadline for entrance into the Naval Academy was history. The skipper was disappointed, but I wasn't.
After finally being discharged, I returned home in April 1946. My hometown girlfriend, a nurse, invited me to a dinner-dance at the VA Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. At this affair, I sat next to a beautiful girl from Northampton, Pa, also a nurse. As I was leaving with my date, she whispered to me,Northampton 503—her phone number. I returned to Lehigh in June 1946 and on my first night in Bethlehem, I called the number and met her in Allentown. A year later, we were married. We had 42 years of marital bliss before she died of cancer in 1988.
Jessie Peck Martin ’89
I met my husband on a chairlift at Blue Mountain (when it was still called Little Gap). We were both trying out for the ski team. The winter of 1986 brought with it the first year for the Lehigh women's ski team and a spot at Nationals.
Dave was one of those great guy members who sharpened our skis and chauffeured us to the big meet. It was and still is wonderful to have someone to cozy up to on a chilly lift to the top. We still are avid skiers. In the meantime, we've created two little skiers and have a third one on the way. Just this weekend, Dave is in Alta enjoying the powder and I was trekking our two to racing camp. It must have been cold for him on that lift!
Mia Michele (Weis) Weinstein ’88
When I arrived at Lehigh on the first day of freshman year, I went to the UC and discovered that I shared a mailbox with a Louis Weinstein (my maiden name is Weis). In October, a lot of mail was arriving for a Lonny Weinstein and I figured out that it was Lonny's (or Louis's) birthday, so I put a piece of apple pie in the box with a birthday wish.
We finally met face-to-face one day after a Law 11 class when Lonny came up to me and said, Hi, I'm your mailbox mate! He asked me out a couple of times, but we just remained friends until sophomore year when while studying for December exams, we had our first kiss in Linderman Library.
In January, he surprised me on my birthday by showing up on my doorstep, and I thought to myself, This is the most handsome, nicest guy on campus. We started dating and continued through graduation and after. We got married in October 1993 and now live in Stamford, Conn., with our two children, Emily,6 and Edward, 3. Thank you Lehigh!
Edward F. Heller '48
Back in the days before Lehigh went coed, if the Glee Club wanted to do soprano alto tenor bass (SATB) harmony, we had to find a woman's college that had the same need. In my senior year, we invited Beaver College (now Arcadia University) to join us for a concert.
My eyes and ears honed in on their soprano soloist, Phyllis Kline, and I dated her for the rest of the year. Although she was two years younger (as she still reminds me), I popped the question, and she finished her schooling in 1950. We've been harmonizing ever since.
Dominique Edelen Hurley ’85
I met Mark Hurley (class of 85ish) freshman year within the first week or so. The moment I saw him I felt this cosmic thump--a combination of incredible attraction and familiarity at the same time.
As is wise freshman year, I paid no attention to that thump and kept my options open, meeting many wonderful men and having some terrific relationships. From his stories and others', I know he did the same. Still, every time I would run into him on the hill or other places, I always felt that familiarity.
Finally senior year (after a few late night connections and some pitchers of beer at Uncle Manny's), we both decided to let destiny drive for a while and fell crazy in love. We got married in 1989 and have three amazing children. That cosmic thump has persevered through the natural highs and lows of marriage.
Even today, after 18 years, I still look at him across the room at a party and feel that pull. My advice: Listen to your belly in matters of love. It speaks the truth.
Matt Brogowski ’91
My wife Heather and I met in January of our freshman year at Lehigh (1987/88). She lived in Beardslee and I lived in Dravo, but I was pledging Beta at the time. We met while I was postering for a Thursday night pub nite (do they still allow those?) and we hit it off right away. I knew when she actually showed up at the party looking for me that we had made a connection. We dated all of our second semester and through the summer.
Unfortunately, Heather left Lehigh after her freshman year and transferred to Georgia State University in her hometown of Atlanta, where she earned two undergraduate degrees and a master’s degree. We continued to date and had huge phone bills (this was before cell phones with their unlimited nights and weekends), and eventually we broke up. We were apart for almost eight years, but kept in touch occasionally with an impromptu call or random visit.
Finally, in 1996, I received a call from her to check up on me and she told me that she was thinking of relocating from Atlanta to another part of the country. After many trips back and forth from New Jersey to Atlanta, I suggested that she move north. She said that she would consider it.
Three months later, I gave her good reason in the form of an engagement ring, and we were married in 1997, almost 10 years after we had first met at Lehigh. We now have a home in New Jersey, our own business, two beautiful daughters (possible future Lehigh classes of 2020 and 2022), and we owe it all to that Thursday night pub nite. Maybe those should be reinstated. What do you think?
Caroline Graf Reich ’81
My husband Joel ('81) and I actually met on the first day of class our freshman year—in an Urban Studies course taught by David Amidon. (Professor Amidon would later take credit for being the catalyst for the relationship and even attended our wedding in June 1981!) That 8 a.m. class was an eye-opener in more ways in one.
We also ended up being in the same freshman English seminar that first semester and began bumping into one another in the music building as Joel went to band practice and I attended choir rehearsals. Soon we were study partners and had declared similar majors.
By spring of our freshman year, romance had blossomed. The engagement ring came early in our junior year, and the wedding took place three weeks after graduation. We've crisscrossed the country together, produced two fine sons, and we've weathered hurricanes, earthquakes, and 27 years of life together, full of challenges and rich rewards. We're still very much in love and we remember with fondness those first wonderful years together on South Mountain.
Marty Lee Sullivan ‘96
As a student at Cedar Crest, I socialized at Lehigh's chapter of TEP, where my future husband Kevin was a brother. We got to know each other as undergrads, but we did not start dating until I was in graduate school at Lehigh. After the 1994 Lehigh-Lafayette game, we bumped into each other at the Tally-Ho and since then, we've made every Lehigh-Lafayette game a tradition. In November of 1999 we got married at Packer Chapel and have chosen to raise our family in Hellertown.
We recently attended a Lehigh wrestling match with our one-year-old son, Mick. While toddling around in his Lehigh sweatshirt, he met a little Lehigh girl who was cheering on the Mountain Hawks in her Lehigh garb. After a hug they parted, but who knows? Look out Class of 2025!
Posted on:
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
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