ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 11, 1996 TAG: 9602120057
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS-BANKS STAFF WRITER
MEMO: ***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on February 13, 1996. The caption for
Sunday's Current front cover photo was left out of the paper. The
caption should have read: Chris Sheppard gave fiancee Beth Nunley an
engagement ring by placing the ring in a red rose in the middle of a
dozen yellow ones. All this while classmates watched. Photo by Gene
Dalton.
MARCIA was a divorcee. A single mother. Alas, a certifiable candidate for the L.H.C. (Lonely Hearts Club).
"I was tired of the date scene," she remembers.
But deep in her heart, Marcia Parks knew that some day her prince would come. He would dash into her life and sweep her off her feet.
Perhaps he just needed a little nudge.
"My girlfriend talked me into placing a personal ad," Marcia said. "The Possibilities section of The Roanoke Times gets the credit for this love match."
Marcia - who described herself as a Christian with family values - was looking for a soul mate. Exactly one week after posting her personal ad, she found him.
Her first meeting with Lee Thacker was set at the Dairy Queen in Valley View Mall.
"I was so nervous, I even took along my 11-year-old son, Alex," she confessed.
"The first time I met Lee, I knew it was meant to be. It was love at first sight! He knew it, too."
It didn't take Marcia long to realize how much she had in common with her well-timed wooer. They liked the same music, the same movies - heck, they even shared a passion for grape pop!
The second meeting, Marcia said, was to take place in Christiansburg where Lee lived. She got in her car early on the morning of Jan. 29, 1994, and drove from Roanoke to his house.
"I arrived at 9 a.m. and he immediately put me on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle," she said. "We rode to a nearby flower shop where there were a dozen roses waiting for me."
"Next," she went on, "we went to a local jewelry store. He asked me to marry him and we picked out a diamond. Then, we had a romantic dinner for two at the Huckleberry Inn."
"On April 30, 1994," she said, "I became Mrs. Frederick Lee Thacker."
Marcia Thacker is 38. Her husband is 47. They're still tooling around together on that Harley.
Now that's what you call lovin' high on the hog!
We said we wanted to hear your love stories and you came through - loud and clear! Apparently, New River Current readers revel in romance.
We invited our readers to share their memories of the proposals that knocked their socks off. Some - like Wanda Shepheard of Radford - haven't planted their feet on the ground yet.
"In 1984, Tony planned to propose to me on Valentine's Day, but he did it a few days before," Wanda wrote.
"You see, there was always this joke about marriage and railroad tracks. When a lady rode over the tracks, she should hold her feet up so that someday she'd get married.
"On this particular day, Tony and I had been out riding and when we came to the railroad tracks on 114, I lifted up my feet and said, 'One day ...' He said, 'If you're going to make that silly story come true, you'd better reach in my coat pocket.'"
Wanda Shepheard found a diamond ring in that coat pocket. She's been wearing it ever since.
"We've been happily married for 11 years and also blessed with a beautiful daughter, Katie," she noted. "So, ladies, watch for those tracks!"
Rebecca Camp found more than peanuts and popcorn in her box of Cracker Jacks.
"It was six weeks before Valentine's Day, Jan. 9, 1991," she wrote. "Steve, my husband now, fixed me a wonderful dinner. We were sitting and talking after dinner, when he left the room and returned with six boxes of Cracker Jacks."
Steve lined up the boxes and told Rebecca to pick one of the six. He also told her one box contained a "very special surprise."
"When I did pick one, Steve said, 'Are you sure you want that one?'" Rebecca remembered. "I said, 'Yes,' and he said, 'No, you don't.'"
But Rebecca stuck to her first choice.
"I poured the Cracker Jacks into a bowl and beheld a diamond ring shining in the light," she said. "I couldn't pick it up because I was so nervous.
"Steve got down on one knee and asked me to marry him and I said, 'Yes!'"
That was four years ago and the Camps are still happily married. They live in Pulaski where Steve works at Hudson Chevrolet and Rebecca works at Warner-Lambert Co.
Every year on Oct. 5 - their anniversary - Steve gives Rebecca a very special (sweet) surprise.
Guess what it is.
It was one of those male competition things that inspired Daniel Gray's proposal.
"A friend of mine proposed to his wife at a hockey game. It flashed up on the scoreboard for everyone to see," he explained. "Chris thought it was pretty neat so I knew I had to beat that."
Beat it he did. Christina Gray will never forget the night Daniel popped the question.
"My husband and I had been dating a little less than six months when he asked me to marry him," she wrote. "It was on a Friday evening and we had decided to go out to eat instead of cooking."
When Daniel and Christina got to the restaurant and were seated, he handed her six red roses and declared his love for her.
Christina felt a pang. Hunger, no doubt.
"As we were about to order, I opened the menu to see what I would like and there, printed on the menu, was the proposal!" she recalled. "Like clockwork, out came the waitresses and waiters with balloons and the ring. How could I say 'no' to a proposal like that?"
"Her face was as red as a beet when they came out with the ring," Daniel added. "Everyone in the restaurant was staring."
Daniel and Christina Gray were married Aug. 13, 1994, and now have a 2-month-old daughter, Alexandra.
"We're still as happy as can be," Christina said.
Edwin Robertson of Pearisburg remembers his wedding day as if it were yesterday.
He married his high school sweetheart 55 years ago.
"Cupid seemed to come and go, but finally he struck with the speed of lightning," Robertson recalled.
His wife-to-be, Katherine, was 18 and he was 21 when they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.
"She suggested that we marry. That was fine with me, but there was a catch. The law at that time - 1941 - required that both parties be 21, even though with parents' permission you could marry a few years younger."
"I was afraid to face her parents for permission, so we decided to go on our own. We went to the clerk's office and told a little white lie, vowing that she was 21."
Robertson had good cause to be a tad jittery.
"Her dad was a cop in this little town of Pearisburg, so we had to sneak," he said. "We drove near the parsonage, walked a distance and knocked on the back door. The minister seemed to be amused as he opened the door. Following the ceremony, he led us toward the front door. I said, 'If you don't mind, we prefer the back.'"
The newlyweds sped away in Robertson's old Ford and lived happily together for 53 years.
"On Jan. 1, 1995, a heart attack took her away," Robertson wrote. "God bless her in heaven."
Beth Nunley and Chris Sheppard plan to get hitched this May. Theirs is an engaging engagement story - with a hitch!
Beth, a 1995 graduate of Auburn High School, thought she was in trouble last year when she was called out of her government class to the assistant principal's office. She remembered being late to school. She forgot it was Valentine's Day.
"When I got up there, the principal's chair was turned backward facing the wall and there was a dozen yellow roses with one red one in the middle sitting on the desk," she said. "Chris - who had been in the chair the whole time - turned around, stood up and pointed to the red rose. It held the ring."
Needless to say, Beth was pleasantly surprised.
"Chris told me how much he loved me and asked me to be his wife, and I said 'Yes!'"
Chris, a computer technician, had cooked up the scheme with the help of Auburn High School secretary, Frances Hodges. Apparently, she wasn't the only one in on the secret.
"My whole class was waiting outside in the hall when we came out!" Beth added. "And the assistant principal, Mr. Williams, still picks on me when he sees me."
Mike Sink and Kimberly Smith will have quite a story to tell their grandchildren, too.
They started dating when they were both students at Pulaski County High School and went on to New River Community College together. Last semester, they signed up for the same class: Principles of Public Speaking.
"We frequently had to give speeches in that class," Kimberly wrote. "On Nov. 10, Mike gave a speech on teen-age drinking. His speech was very in-depth and took a while to present."
By the time Mike finished his speech, Kimberly said, there wasn't an eye in the room that wasn't glazed over.
Looking out at the bored faces in front of him, Mike asked if anyone had any questions.
No one did.
"Well, I do," Mike announced. "Kimberly Smith, will you marry me?"
As mouths dropped, Mike walked to where Kimberly was sitting, fetched a ring from his pocket and fell to his knee to await her answer.
"All I could do was squeak and shrill in joy," Kimberly said.
The wedding date is set for Dec. 14.
Mike, by the way, got a "B" in Principles of Public Speaking.
Deanne Lane will tell you that Cupid sometimes strikes when you least expect it.
"I'll never forget the night my husband, David, proposed to me," she wrote. "I had almost given up on him ever asking me to marry him because I had been waiting to hear those magic words for about four years. Every holiday or special event that came passed by without a word."
Deanne and David were watching a TV movie, "Star Man," when David started playing with the rings on her fingers.
"He was turning them around on my fingers and sliding them on and off," she recalled. "I was paying absolutely no attention to this at all."
Finally, David broke through Deanne's concentration.
"Well, aren't you even going to look?" he asked.
"At that precise moment, I realized he had slipped a diamond on my finger and I bolted upright to look at it," Deanne remembered.
Then, she did what anyone might do in that situation.
She started crying.
"When I think back about that night, I still get goosebumps," she said. "This year for Christmas I gave David the movie, 'Star Man.'
"This March we will celebrate our 10th anniversary and I know in my heart that God intended for us to be together. Our love has grown even stronger over the years and we now have two beautiful daughters - Kaytlin and Sara - a happy home of our own and, most of all, each other."
LENGTH: Long : 210 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. 1. (no caption) ran on NRV-1. 2. Aby CNBsurprise in every box? In 1991, Rebecca Camp got a major surprise.
Steve Camp, now her husband, hid a diamond ring in a box of Cracker
Jacks. That led to a marriage proposal, and now the couple lives
happily in Pulaski where Steve works at Hudson Chevrolet and Rebecca
works at Warner-Lambert Co. color.