Mustangs in love

I met Benson on April 7, 2006. It was a meet-cute before those officially had a name. My sorority, Sigma Lambda Gamma, celebrates Founders’ Day on April 9, and I was carrying a large stack of pizzas into the student center for the celebration. Now, I consider myself to be a comedian, so my running joke when I tell this story is that he wanted a slice. At the time, the multicultural scene at SMU was smaller than it is now, so I am confident we would have crossed paths eventually. After meeting, Benson and I quickly became best friends. In August of the following year, friendship turned into something more. We have been married now for 11 years and together for 16 – seeing the world and growing as young(ish) professionals. I work at the North Texas Food Bank and Benson supports Hilton’s corporate offices. We are raising Sophie (7) and Cassian (3), hoping they will be Mustangs just like Mom and Dad.

We both attended SMU and started dating shortly after graduation. Both our parents — Carolyn Bender ’81 and Gary Bender ’81, and Rose DeTrempe ’84 and Peter DeTrempe ’83 — met at and graduated from SMU. Between the two of us, we also have three siblings and three siblings-in-law who attended SMU. The school has held many love stories for our families!

An automated post on Classmates.com played matchmaker for us. In 2021, Charles noticed the message on his account suggesting he might remember me from high school. Although my yearbook picture looked familiar, he didn’t remember me exactly. When he clicked on my profile, Classmates sent me a message that someone from high school “remembered” me. I took the next step by emailing him, using my father as the connection. Since Charles earned his Juris Doctor from SMU and had been adjunct faculty at the University, I thought he might remember my father, who had been an SMU law professor. He did. After thousands of emails and some late-night phone calls, Charles drove from Dallas to Austin in September 2021 to meet me in person. By month’s end, he proposed, and we married at my home in Austin that December.

Our love story began in Hyer Hall more than 20 years ago, where we met in Intro to Hebrew Bible. We dated nearly three years and got engaged on the steps of Hyer. It was a coincidence that both of our mothers also worked at SMU. We married in 2005 at Perkins Chapel and had our reception on campus. We have been married almost 18 years and have two sweet boys who are destined to be Mustangs. We love SMU!

We missed meeting at SMU by three months. My sister set us up on a blind date years later. We’ve been married for 21 years and have two children — still going strong!

William and I lived in Shuttles Hall during our freshman and sophomore years but didn’t start dating until our junior year. We’ve been together for 16 years (married 11) and have two kids.

We were both highly involved students on campus and developed a true friendship before starting to date in 2017, after graduating. We got engaged on the steps of Dallas Hall in November 2021 and married in Perkins Chapel in August 2022, where Katelyn’s parents (Cheryl Hall ’73 and John Hall ’71, ’73, ’79) married 50 years before.

We knew early in our relationship that we had found the one. After meeting at the Crossroads retreat in 2007, we orbited each other for about a year before officially dating in 2008, and we never looked back! We became husband and wife in 2011, and now we are the parents of two boys (7 and 3). Our years together at SMU — enjoying countless formals, date dashes, homecoming float builds and even lazy lunches at Hughes-Trigg — are some of our most cherished memories. Having settled in Dallas, we are grateful that we can continue to make memories at SMU with our sons.

My wife and I met at SMU during my first week of school at the bookstore in 1999. I knew that day that I had met my wife. We lived in Boaz, were friends until junior year when we started dating. Now, we have been married for 13 years and have 10-year-old twin girls.

In fall 2004, Francisco Torres, an international student from Colombia, and I, a California girl, both began the semester at SMU-in-Paris. I remained the full year in Paris, and he returned to SMU for his last semester to graduate but he made sure to come back to visit me during the spring break I spent in Paris. We got engaged at SMU the following year. We have been married for 15 years and have two young sons and still live in Dallas. Thank you, SMU, for bringing us together!

Twenty-three years ago at Hughes-Trigg, a boy asked a girl permission to kiss her. We became partners for life.

Cayla Atha ’10 and Tyler Atha ’09 met in January of 2007, during Tyler’s sophomore year and Cayla’s freshman year at SMU. Cayla and a few of her pledge sisters went out to dinner at Gloria’s with a group of friends, including Tyler and his friends. At one point, Cayla went to the restroom and came back to see her purse and things had been moved to the other end of the table, right next to Tyler. While she was gone the table had plotted to set the two of them up! By the end of their dinner, Tyler and Cayla left holding hands and the rest is history.