40 ForOregonState.org/Stater COURTESY OF HEATHER AND SAM DAVIDSON AND ISAAC MAGAÑA AND CHRISTIAN MATHEIS “It’s kind of public flirting,” says Kevin Miller,’78, the former editor of the Oregon Stater and the Daily Barometer. “Imagine if there was a Tinder, but you had to post on a big wall in the middle of the campus.” The trend reached a fever pitch around Valentine’s Day. One night, a young man desperate for the right words sought help from several Barometer staff members, Miller recalls. As the deadline for the Feb. 14 edition approached, the man paced the newspaper’s office — his fate in the writers’ hands. The results of labors of love like this live forever in the Barometer archives. Witness February 1982, from Sociology Tom to Lori Johnson: “I think you’re sweet, I think you’re cute, I’m lousy at poetry, so how about dinner?” February 1983, amid two full pages of personal ads, from a secret admirer to John T. Green: “From time to time / Our paths have crossed / One look at you and / My heart was lost.” February 1984, in “Love & Bodily Fondleness” from RB to Muff: “It’s not enough to be my creampuff, be myValentine too!” Already, courtship had gone from something conducted entirely in public, under supervision, to something that was more dispersed and individual. Formal dances had been supplanted as a main mode of socializing; instead, students were more likely to meet and form relationships — romantic or otherwise — in clubs, classes or study groups. Future spouses Lori, ’85, and Jen-Hsun Huang, ’84, ’09 (Hon. Ph.D.), now the president and CEO of the tech company NVIDIA, met as lab partners.“I tried Heather Sam Davidson In October 1979, Sam Davidson, ’83, posted a notice in the corridor of Bloss Hall: He would draw your portrait for $5. Heather Cudd, ’82, took him up on the offer. They sat in Sam’s room, talking and listening to Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. They became friends — and eventually dated and got engaged. “We were happily in love for about six months, and then I messed things up,” Heather says. “I was young and immature, not ready for marriage, and panicked, breaking the whole thing off.” Nearly 30 years later, a mutual friend suggested that Heather should try to track Sam down. She sent a birthday card. He replied with his phone number. Cut to the next summer, when they married — “best friends and soulmates reunited,” Heather says. Isaac Magaña Christian Matheis “Instantly, I was just kind of awestruck,” says Christian Matheis, ’01, M.A. ’04, recalling the first time he met Isaac Magaña, ’04, on the fourth floor of Bloss Hall in 1999. Isaac, on the other hand, had no idea Christian was interested: “I was completely oblivious,” he says. Over the next few months, each started devising more excuses to see the other until, at the annual Residential Life Casino Night, they became a couple. They were the first domestic partnership in Benton County, and, due to administrative issues in Multnomah County, possibly in the entire state. Later, they chose not to marry: “Our love is too big for marriage,” Christian says. ↖ As students, Heather and Sam got engaged, but she broke it off. Thirtyone years later, they married. ↙ Christian and Isaac shared a devotion to campus life and politics. “OSU offered a loving chosen family at a time when our own families were still figuring out how to support us,” Christian says. Dat ng APPS IN GENERAL, THEY’RE EVERYWHERE. I DON’T THINK THERE’S A WHOLE LOT OF MEETING PEOPLE organi ally. “
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