AE Couples

AE COUPLES by Sue Poremba
AE Newsletter - Fall/Winter 2002
We got the engagement announcement via email: Cara Pierce will be marrying Marc Sodl. Yet another AE coupling. I’m starting to think Cupid is perched on top of the sign over the Copy Center door, shooting his arrows at unsuspecting students. Based on the number of marriages happening among our students and alumni, it may behoove the Department to open up a wedding chapel. When I first began researching this article, I counted 25 or so AE couples. However, as I began to contact couples, they began to contact other AE couples that I hadn’t known about. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of AE marriages out there! It would be safe to say that most couples met in the classroom, like Jim and Joyce Stephens or like Michael and Elizabeth (Ebner) Weigand, who met in Professor Kummer’s intro to building materials class. Others, like Jeff and Johanna Harris, met outside the classroom. “I met Jeff at the beginning of spring semester during our second year at school,” Johanna says. “I was waiting with a friend of mine in a drop/add line. He was waiting behind us. We started talking, and he told us he was a second-year AE. We didn’t believe him because we had never seen him before. Turns out he was never very big on attending class on a regular schedule.” Or as Jeff points out, “She didn’t pay much attention to anyone except for herself and her friends who sat up front and raised their hands to answer questions.” Karen (Miller) Gleba still isn’t sure if Jimmy Gleba was noticing her on the day they met. “I was working in Hammond on a AE 222 project with some of my AE girlfriends,” she says. “Jim, who was new to Happy Valley, was walking down the hall with another AE. As they walked by, Jim exclaimed, ‘Who are those hot chicks?’ To this day, I don’t know if he meant me or my girlfriends.” Karen and Jim’s relationship blossomed like that of many other AE couples. Instead of “real dates,” they got to know each other by hanging out together doing homework and projects or by becoming very good friends. David Komonosky says that after meeting Jeannine Fisher, the two of them hung out together until he went off to Leeds in his 4^th year. Jim and Joyce Stephens both served on the Association of Residence Hall Students, as well as going through their AE classes together. Johanna Harris, however, said that she and Jeff did have a first date. She asked him to go out with her right after an AE 308 exam during their third year. “The exam was so mind boggling,” she said, “I’m sure I had no idea what I was doing.” Jeannine Fisher didn’t ask David Komonsky out after an exam. Instead, she tracked down David in Leeds and sent him “The Letter” that changed their relationship. David says, “This is all before the existence of email, mind you. Jeannine was in hot pursuit, and David knew he could escape the whole brains and beauty thing. Besides, who else could build balsa wood models, cook gourmet meals, and turn heads on College Avenue all at the same time?” Jeannine went to Leeds the following year, but despite the long separations, the two managed to create a thriving relationship. Apparently, Cupid’s arrow goes beyond the halls of the Engineering Units, but into the workplace as well. Karen Miller and Jim Gleba both accepted jobs at Leach Wallace after graduation. Karen says, “After working together for about 8 months, we were at a fun party with our AE crowd, and we both sensed a change in our relationship. Maybe it was the growing maturity, maybe it was the Yuengling, but the rest is history.” Perhaps it is the camaraderie that comes from being AE classmates, but working together seems to be a common thread among the AE couples. Jim and Joyce Stephens worked at the same construction companies and at times on the same projects until the birth of their son, Jay, when Joyce became a stay-at-home mom. Jeff Harris recently left Ellerbe Beckett to join Johanna at Hammel Green and Abrahamson. Michael and Elizabeth Weigand have gone into business together to operate Weigand Assoc., Inc. Karen Gleba advises graduating AEs to be “very aware of who takes a job with the same company – you may end up waking up with them for the rest of your life.” The way Cupid strikes around here, I’d revise Karen’s advice to be very aware of who sits next to you in AE 310 or AE 221 or at the donut table on Thursday mornings.

AE COUPLES
by Sue Poremba

AE Newsletter - Fall/Winter 2002

We got the engagement announcement via email: Cara Pierce will be marrying Marc Sodl. Yet another AE coupling.

I’m starting to think Cupid is perched on top of the sign over the Copy Center door, shooting his arrows at unsuspecting students. Based on the number of marriages happening among our students and alumni, it may behoove the Department to open up a wedding chapel.

When I first began researching this article, I counted 25 or so AE couples. However, as I began to contact couples, they began to contact other AE couples that I hadn’t known about. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of AE marriages out there!

It would be safe to say that most couples met in the classroom, like Jim and Joyce Stephens or like Michael and Elizabeth (Ebner) Weigand, who met in Professor Kummer’s intro to building materials class. Others, like Jeff and Johanna Harris, met outside the classroom.

“I met Jeff at the beginning of spring semester during our second year at school,” Johanna says. “I was waiting with a friend of mine in a drop/add line. He was waiting behind us. We started talking, and he told us he was a second-year AE. We didn’t believe him because we had never seen him before. Turns out he was never very big on attending class on a regular schedule.”

Or as Jeff points out, “She didn’t pay much attention to anyone except for herself and her friends who sat up front and raised their hands to answer questions.”

Karen (Miller) Gleba still isn’t sure if Jimmy Gleba was noticing her on the day they met. “I was working in Hammond on a AE 222 project with some of my AE girlfriends,” she says. “Jim, who was new to Happy Valley, was walking down the hall with another AE. As they walked by, Jim exclaimed, ‘Who are those hot chicks?’ To this day, I don’t know if he meant me or my girlfriends.”

Karen and Jim’s relationship blossomed like that of many other AE couples. Instead of “real dates,” they got to know each other by hanging out together doing homework and projects or by becoming very good friends. David Komonosky says that after meeting Jeannine Fisher, the two of them hung out together until he went off to Leeds in his 4^th year. Jim and Joyce Stephens both served on the Association of Residence Hall Students, as well as going through their AE classes together. Johanna Harris, however, said that she and Jeff did have a first date. She asked him to go out with her right after an AE 308 exam during their third year. “The exam was so mind boggling,” she said, “I’m sure I had no idea what I was doing.”

Jeannine Fisher didn’t ask David Komonsky out after an exam. Instead, she tracked down David in Leeds and sent him “The Letter” that changed their relationship. David says, “This is all before the existence of email, mind you. Jeannine was in hot pursuit, and David knew he could escape the whole brains and beauty thing. Besides, who else could build balsa wood models, cook gourmet meals, and turn heads on College Avenue all at the same time?” Jeannine went to Leeds the following year, but despite the long separations, the two managed to create a thriving relationship.

Apparently, Cupid’s arrow goes beyond the halls of the Engineering Units, but into the workplace as well. Karen Miller and Jim Gleba both accepted jobs at Leach Wallace after graduation. Karen says, “After working together for about 8 months, we were at a fun party with our AE crowd, and we both sensed a change in our relationship. Maybe it was the growing maturity, maybe it was the Yuengling, but the rest is history.”

Perhaps it is the camaraderie that comes from being AE classmates, but working together seems to be a common thread among the AE couples. Jim and Joyce Stephens worked at the same construction companies and at times on the same projects until the birth of their son, Jay, when Joyce became a stay-at-home mom. Jeff Harris recently left Ellerbe Beckett to join Johanna at Hammel Green and Abrahamson. Michael and Elizabeth Weigand have gone into business together to operate Weigand Assoc., Inc.

Karen Gleba advises graduating AEs to be “very aware of who takes a job with the same company – you may end up waking up with them for the rest of your life.” The way Cupid strikes around here, I’d revise Karen’s advice to be very aware of who sits next to you in AE 310 or AE 221 or at the donut table on Thursday mornings.

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