We ask alumni: Where did you meet your Buckeye love?
From campus crushes to lifelong commitments, Buckeyes share where sparks first flew—and how love endured.
The first time Mike Nolan saw his future wife wasn’t in person. On Oct. 20, 1971, The Lantern ran a front-page photo of Jill Eversole. The Homecoming queen candidate was laughing, roller skating, doing charity work, long hair shining in the sun, knee socks pulled high. “When I got back to Park 10 that day,” he says, “half the doors already had that photo plastered on them, so I knew I wasn’t alone.”
He was the only man who turned his determination to meet her into a 48-year marriage. They got to know each other in college: Her brother was a year ahead in Mike’s fraternity, Alpha Gamma Sigma; her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, was their “little sister”; both ended up presidents of their groups. But they didn’t start dating until after both graduated. Two kids (Mikal ’04 and Patrick ’08) and several degrees later, Mike ’74, ’97 MS, ’08 PhD and Jill ’74, ’97 PhD are still going strong. They’re using their “retiree” years to run Kilkerrin, a wedding and events business in restored barns on their fourth-generation farm in northern Ohio. “We obviously owe a lot to Ohio State,” Mike says.
They pay forward by endowing a scholarship for CFAES students who plan to study abroad. “It’s important that students have an opportunity to learn it’s a big world outside of Ohio,” Mike says. The family has first-hand experience. After Ohio State, Mikal, who lives in Papua New Guinea with her husband and children, studied in the United Kingdom and South Africa. Mike, Jill and Patrick will be visiting her family this month, perhaps convincing her children of the appeal of their alma mater, back in their home state of Ohio.
Mike shared his story after we asked alumni, “If you met your significant other at Ohio State, where was it?” Read on for more answers.
“Snowball battle at Bradley/Patterson courtyard. Snowball thrown at her dorm window. It broke the window. No snow, no wife.”
— Doug Plank ’75
“I met my husband to be in the Ag College Choir in Spring 1970. Later he told me it was my bright yellow dress (which I had made) that drew his attention!”
— Linda Edwards ’72
“She came down the steps of Baker Hall as my blind date. Classic lightning-bolt moment.”
There’s more to the story! Philip continues …
“The conversation that never ends had begun. We got engaged but things didn’t go as planned. We moved on. We married others, but each sadly ended in divorce. After 22 years, we reconnected by chance and discovered love doesn’t die. We’ve been happily married for 26 years. Time and change works.”
“Freshman year 1975 at Smith. She had the most beautiful big brown eyes that smiled right through my heart.”
— Marty Murrer ’79
“Instagram!”
— Owen Burgess ’24
“The Lima campus in 1967 in geography class. I sat in the row behind her, and her smile and red hair caught my attention.”
— Thomas Miller ’70
“Hagerty Hall, 7 p.m. economics class”
— Gerald Lawhun ’54
“We met (according to me) spring quarter our second year in Robinson Lab. According to my wife, we met in Koffolt Lab fall quarter our third year.”
— Mark Warfield ’80
“An off-campus apartment complex laundry room”
— Pamela Elsass ’68
“Stadium Dorm at the basketball court under the bleachers. To this day, 54 years married, all happy. Both alums and diehard fans.”
We asked John to tell us more …
“While living in the Stadium Dorm (’65-’69), I was the cafeteria manager for all the residents. In the fall of ’66, the stadium cafeteria was being remodeled and we went sent to Morrill Tower for meals. As dorms were not co-ed at that time, it was great to meet and dine with women there.
“At the stadium, we had basketball hoops installed by the concession stands under the bleachers for the stadium residents to play our own intramurals. On a mid-November Friday evening, we invited a few women to join us for some basketball there. My wife was one of them, along with several of her friends.
“As it turned out, I broke the finger of one of her friends. Sue and I became very close, and I humbly asked her to be my wife upon graduation. Separated for 18 months because of the Army draft, we were married on July 17, 1971.”
“Jones Tower. My first night, I banged on his door and yelled at him because he was playing loud music at 1 a.m. I had an 8 a.m. class. We’ve been married for 45 years.”
— Joan Blaih ’81
“The Ohio State University Marching Band”
— Tad Ignatz ’98
“Dancing on the tables at the Varsity Club, during sorority rush”
— Kenneth Martell ’75
“The Scarlet and Gray Forecasting Team. We got married next to Mirror Lake in 2022—outside in 8-degree windchills in the middle of a snow squall. Being meteorologists, we wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
“A Michigan game in Ann Arbor! Ohio State won, and we rushed the field. We met there on the M.”
— Kenneth Ferlito ’85
“At the medical center. We were pharmacy residents together.”
— Steven Loborec ’15 MS, ’16 MPH
“We actually met at Taste of OSU—I was serving food, he was on the receiving end. My sister recognized him as ‘that guy’ we’d been chatting with on Messenger for weeks. One thing led to another, and somehow we ended up forming a band together—me singing, him on guitar. Fast forward three years, and instead of just bandmates, we became life-mates. (Yep, married in 2020.)
— Mayesha Amin ’18
