The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

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Sometimes, succumbing to peer pressure can be a good thing.

For Jeff and Cheryl Hawes, nagging friends brought them together in a marriage that neither had anticipated, nor even wanted.

They’re grateful now for the persistent nudging that took them to an Emporia High School class reunion in 2002.

Neither Jeff nor Cheryl (whose last name was Ullman then) had planned to attend, until Nan Purviance, coaxing Cheryl in Overland Park, and Ken Calhoun, working on Jeff in Emporia, convinced them to go.

“I had to be dragged there,” Cheryl said. “I have never liked going to reunions. ... I understand he didn’t want to go either, so we were both there against our will.”

They’d had numerous mutual friends while attending EHS and were acquainted — she was Cheryl Ullman then — but they had never dated in high school.

The meeting in 2002 was between two people who had evolved into adults, with families and life experiences of their own.

“I was very comfortable when I met her,” Jeff said of his encounter with Cheryl at the event.

Cheryl’s perception was similar.

“I thought he was a very nice person. He’d changed a lot from when I knew him in high school, had matured a lot,” she said.

After the reunion, they found themselves sitting side-by-side at the Village Inn, having breakfast with a group of other classmates and escorts. It was a good feeling.

“You know how sometimes you just get that warm feeling sitting next to someone?” Cheryl asked. “It was just one of those things, like we’d been together for a long time.”

Soon, Jeff had called and left five telephone numbers she could use to get in touch with him.

Cheryl, however, wasn’t looking for a relationship. She been divorced for 19 years, was working as a residential property appraiser in Overland Park and planned to keep her life just as it was.

“I said I was never going to get remarried,” she said. “I had already made the decision to stay single.”

Once again, Purviance worked on changing Cheryl’s mind.

“Nancy Purviance said, ‘No, go ahead, go ahead, just for friendship,’” Cheryl recalled hearing. “Then when I tried to call him, I called all those five numbers and couldn’t get him at any of them. I had to leave messages.”

Eventually, they connected and began a long-distance friendship, meeting occasionally to go out on what technically did not qualify as “dates.”

“We talked almost all night long and I made him go home,” Cheryl said with amusement, remembering a remark Jeff had made later. “He said, ‘I can’t believe you sent me on the road. I could have been killed at 3 o’clock in the morning. I could have fallen asleep.’ ... and I said, ‘Well, you sure weren’t staying here.’”

The pair took their time and let the relationship develop.

Jeff needed time to work through the premature death of Deanna, to whom he had been married 35 years. Deanna had only been gone about a year and a half, and the marriage had been a close one.

Cheryl needed time to change her mind about being married again.

“Then I realized that he was a gentle man and a nice person, and you know, someone that I felt I could be happy with,” Cheryl said. “Of course, he was still going through mourning somewhat, was in kind of a sentimental state as well. It just kind of flowed from there.”

On July 19, 2003, they were married at an Episcopal church in Kansas City, Mo.

“We dated about a year and a half,” Jeff said. “It wasn’t any rush deal.”

Both are happy they changed their minds about attending the class reunion, and Jeff believes that he has been doubly blessed.

“I think I did good twice in life,” he said.