DATE: Saturday, March 22, 1997              TAG: 9703220897

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: MOYOCK                            LENGTH:   50 lines

MAN FINDS ROAD TO LOVE

To anyone who has doubts, love is in bloom.

Popping up Friday along Tulls Creek Road amid the daffodils and dandelions were three handmade signs seeking a sweetheart's hand in matrimony.

They were the work of a smitten Washington, D.C., editor who relied on the help of people he didn't know to pop the question to his girlfriend, a Moyock Elementary School teacher.

The red-lettered, hand-stenciled signs read:

``Kathryn Hart''

``Will You''

``Marry Me?''

``Hopefully, she'll see them - if she doesn't drive too fast,'' said Chris Weiskircher as he posted the 2-by-3-foot signs in three yards about an hour before Hart was to go by.

Weiskircher, 31, took a day off work to drive to Moyock while Hart, also 31, was still in school. He then waited by the third sign for her reaction.

``I was counting on people here being decent and friendly,'' Weiskircher said of his plan. ``And they were nice. ''

Among the nice folks were Mary Anne and Grady Smith, who were baby-sitting their granddaughter when Weiskircher asked permission to put up a sign about two miles north of the Tulls Bay Marina.

``I just thought it was so cute,'' Mary Anne Smith said.

Her husband of almost 42 years agreed.

``I just didn't have a problem with it at all. He told me that the one that he's proposing to comes by this house,'' Grady Smith said.

``People will go to almost any extreme to propose these days, won't they?'' he added.

Weiskircher and Hart both grew up in St. Albans, W.Va., but didn't meet until years later at a Washington, D.C., party. They've dated for two years.

And what did Hart, who teaches exceptional children at Moyock Elementary, say after seeing the signs?

``I said yes!

``When I first saw my name, I said, `What's going on here?' Then, when the next one said `Will You,' I kinda knew what was going to follow.''

Weiskircher then took down the signs, much to his future bride's relief.

``I was getting nervous because the school buses were getting ready to go, and the students would have seen them,'' she said, giggling.

The couple is considering an October wedding. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Illustration]

JOHN EARLE

The Virginian-Pilot

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