A story about meeting in a psychology class, a spontaneous proposal, faith and family, and a love that deepened through hardship.

The story of David and Robin began in the lecture halls of Carson Newman, where chance and seating arrangements played a fateful role. Robin, a recent transfer and stellar student from Anderson College, sat just behind David in their Psychology of Learning class. David was immediately struck by her beauty and intelligence, but at the time, his life was a patchwork of half-formed romances and academic uncertainties. Studying together made their connection feel inevitable; infatuation grew into something sturdier, tested by long nights in the library and the quiet joy of shared jokes.

Falling in love was more gradual than cinematic—a product of laughter, adventures, and, as Robin fondly recalls, a growing comfort with each other's quirks. Their internships at Lakeshore Mental Health Institute—he working among the chronic patients, she with the acute—provided an unusual but fitting backdrop, grounding their romance in shared purpose and learning. David's initial plans for an archaeological dig in Israel pulled him away, but intuition (and prayer) led him back, culminating in a spontaneous, no-frills proposal in a shopping mall on Halloween. The engagement—mundane in some details, extraordinary in others—felt right, and Robin said yes, humor and love threaded through every retelling of the story.

They married young, amid the simple rhythms of 1970s college life, with Robin’s mother setting the calendar: three months to plan before an April 1st wedding. Looking back, both marvel at the blind confidence of youth; at 21 and 22, permanence felt more like possibility than certainty. The early years saw disagreements and growing pains. Those foundational years laid the groundwork for what would become a partnership marked by faith, work, and mutual respect.

Their families brought their own expectations and wisdom to the union. For Robin’s Southern parents, David was a curiosity at first but quickly became a son-in-law—her father, a mechanic, and David bonding over shared projects and quiet afternoons in the workshop. It was Robin’s father who offered a key kernel of advice: tend to your own marriage, and let others tend to theirs. David, whose own upbringing lacked strong models for marriage, found in Robin’s family both an anchor and an example. Together, they navigated life’s transitions with humility and prayer, drawing strength from their differences: Robin’s stable, close-knit beginnings contrasted with David’s resilience forged through hardship.

David's business acumen involved a high tolerance for risk - something that Robin had a low tolerance for. David looks back on some of those years as not being fair to Robin. He'd simply come from nothing, so he had no fear of returning to that state. A period of very hard work building a business resulting none-the-less in a million dollars in debt, led to Robin being deep in despair and crying out to the Lord. She now counts that time as essential to developing the depth of her relationship with Christ. She prayed that God would help them just pay bills, including payroll. In turn, God helped David rebuild the business and has blessed them more than they could have ever anticipated.

David recounts times when he walked away from the Lord, yet Robin remained steadfast. He credits her with praying him back to God. "She literally has calloused knees!" Her desire was to see him be at peace. To be able to stop trying to please an earthly father and learn to trust God. She has seen that happen in recent years.

Their decades together have been shaped by small acts of love, lots of prayer, and the rituals of daily life—saying “I love you” every day, leaning into gratitude through illness and recovery, and rediscovering appreciation for each other in retirement. There were tough chapters—like the heart attack that nearly took David’s life, a moment of reckoning that only highlighted the unwavering affection and faith defining their relationship. Through all the changes, the thread of their story is a simple one: a friendship deepened by adversity, a marriage built on shared laughter, and a covenant quietly tended, day by day.