About the Couple
Marlina graduated from Northwest Missouri State Unveristy with a degree in organizational communciation. She received her master’s degree in communication from the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). She currently works at UNO as a communication instructor, teaching special sections of public speaking for first year students, integrating speech and college success strategies. She is also the Speech Center Consulting Coordinator, helping promote speaking across the curriculum at UNO. She enjoys watching Law & Order & CSI, playing Ms. Pac-Man and scrapbooking.
ABOUT DUSTY
Dusty is a graduate of Iowa State University. He received his degree in Computer Science. He currently works at C & A Industries as a software devleoper. He spends most of his free time running to prepare for the Minneapolis marathon. He enjoys spending a lot of time on the computer, staying updated on technology, news, and anything else that interests him.
HOW WE MET
We met on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2003. We had met previously, both of us originally being from Council Bluffs, but had never went beyond the occasional hello or random meetings at a party.
In telling how we met I better start from the beginning. I met Nate Reedy in my freshman seminar class at Northwest Missouri State. I don’t think I ever talked to him but happened to meet him months later, during the summer, at home in Council Bluffs. There Nate was, sitting at a table, playing cards with my close high school friends. It so happens that he worked with some of my friends and was returning home for the summer like so many of us do during college to see family and work to make some money.
We all went back to school and I was never to see much of Nate again. I became friends with Keely Burns while back at Northwest and found she went to high school in a small town outside of Council Bluffs, Glenwood. During my third summer home, Keely and I went to a friend of mine’s apartment where we happened to meet Nate. As it happens Nate and Keely started dating.
Almost a year and a half later Nate was at war, I was living in Omaha (having graduated a year prior) and Keely was visiting for the holidays, during her vacation. On New Year’s Eve Keely and I, along with another friend Alyssa Welu, were trying to find somewhere to celebrate the coming of 2004. Nate had said Keely should call a friend of his, Dusty, and that we should meet up with them downtown… and so we did. Without that New Year’s Eve invitation we might not have ever had the chance to meet.
OUR FIRST ENCOUNTER
We are both from Council Bluffs and so we had a few chance meetings. Dusty has had his own website for years and at one time he wrote in his blog regularly. After Dusty and I started dating I found this blog entry from July 3rd, 2002 where Dusty had written a blog entry about the first time we met.
The night I met Dusty I was with Michaela Ginn and we were meeting up with some of her friends at someone’s house, Dusty’s house. What’s kind of funny is that I can’t remember meeting him as much as he remembers meeting me. I have a faint memory of the night but no more than that. I do remember going to his house on another occasion but he was out of town. I just remember one of his friends was house sitting and had a party. Here are Dusty’s thoughts on the first time we met.
July 3rd, 2002
tonight started out as a dull night, and ended up being a bunch of people coming over to my house. i wasn’t drinking, but i still had quite a bit of fun, although i was tired to begin with and now its nearly 4:00am and people just left a minute ago… anywho..
bunch of nates friends came over basically… most importantly willard (naturally), kayla, and this other girl (who’s name escapes me now, dammit). this girl struck me as cute when she first arrived, and was very outgoing and introduced herself right away and we started talking, having a nice conversation. she very much grew on me through the rest of the evening… VERY nice and friendly and outgoing, the type of girl thats friends with everyone. naturally, with my current string of good luck, she’s going to nwms with nate, and of course, has a boyfriend. shucks. oh well.