Sweethearts

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Victoria Leanne Schneider & Mark Richard O'Dell How We Came to Be: We were in the same Anatomy & Physiology class in high school. He was a Senior, I was a sophomore. I wasn't really interested in him because he was a jock. My friend Sam, however, was interested in a homecoming date. I asked Mark out for Sam, and through out their short-lived high school item status- I was middle ground. I got to know Mark very well. It took me still talking to him all of the time after they broke up, to realize that I really liked him. But, I was shy.... he was shy.... and neither of us ever worked up the guts to get involved until after he went away to college. I saw him once or twice during his freshman year in college. He went to Kansas Weselyn University in Salina, and came back to Herington sometimes. It wasn't until the summer after his freshman year (my junior year in high school), that we met up again. We hung out quite a few times over the summer, and we both liked each other and made it fairly obvious. Yet, I had a boyfriend, and he was going off to college again. His sophomore year, he was going to Washburn University of Topeka, KS. So I figured I would hardly ever see him... We began dating in September of 2000. Since I was still in high school at Herington, he would drive down every weekend from Topeka to see me. We made up our minds to date exclusively on October 8, 2000. We continued to get to know each other, taking every weeknight on ICQ and being together on the weekends. On December 17, while Mark was at his parents' for semester break, he proposed to me. Of course, I said yes. I already had intentions to graduate from high school one semester early, so when December 22 rolled around, I was free from HHS. On December 30, I packed all of my crap and moved to Topeka to live with Mark and attend Washburn University. We both quickly learned that living together is a lot different from spending the night every once in awhile. However, we're both firm believers in sticking it out. And it paid off. We've lived together for eight months, and it only gets easier. We've come to know and love each other's idiosynchrocies, and we've even come to an agreement on doing the dishes.