Dr. B.J. Fratzke’s office is spacious and open. One side is covered with windows, the other with books. Pictures of her husband and family hang above her desk. Her husband, Dr. Mike Fratzke, the division chair of human and health performance, is running late to the interview.

B.J. Fratzke, the division chair of behavioral sciences, said she met her husband at LeTourneau University more than 40 years ago. She was a professor, and he was an upperclassman. As she was asked how she first met her husband, Mike Fratzke joined the interview. B.J. Fratzke looked at her husband and told him to share his first impression of her.

Mike: “I knew she was the one. I saw her walking across the gymnasium – I was on the far end playing badminton – and I said that is the one right there.”

B.J.:“I was wearing a white tennis outfit, and I was pretty nicely tan at that point in time.”

Mike: “She had an Indiana farm tan, [and] white blouse, white shorts, white socks, white tennis shoes.”

B.J.: “Everything white.”

Mike: “Long hair.”

B.J.: “Long dark hair with white teeth showing up.”

The Fratzkes looked at each other and laughed at the memory. Though Mike Fratzke knew immediately that he had found “the one” it took his wife a little longer to notice him.

B.J.: “Gosh, I don’t remember the first time I saw him.”

B.J. Fratzke said that even though it took some time for her to finally meet Mike Fratzke, she had already heard of him.

B.J.: “The real truth of the matter is the secretary of [my] department said to me, ‘Did you notice so and so?’ And I said, ‘Uh yeah.’ ‘Well, he’s single,’ [she said] and from there on she pushed. She thought she had made the match.”

Mike: “A lot of people like to take credit for it, the baseball coach.”

B.J.: “The baseball coach likes to take credit. The brother-in-law said, ‘Well, if it’s going well, I will take credit for it, otherwise…”

They both laughed at this comment. Mike Fratzke’s brother was partially responsible for B.J. Fratzke getting hired at LeTourneau.

Born and raised in Indiana Fratzke moved to Longview, Texas, to take a job as an instructor of physical education. Mike Fratzke was finishing up his undergrad work. In order to begin dating, the Fratzkes asked for special permission.

B.J.: “I got permission from the president of the university to date this young man – well, because I was a professor and he was a student.”

The Fratzkes went on their first date in October, though they couldn’t remember what exactly they did.

B.J.: “We went bowling.”

Mike: “I thought we went the football game first.”

BJ: “We went on the second [date].”

They got married the following June. The Fratzkes stayed at LeTourneau for the next 14 years, with Mike Fratzke joining the faculty two years later. During this time, the Fratzkes welcomed their two daughters. When they finally decided to head back to the Midwest, B.J. Fratzke was not excited to move.

BJ: “I didn’t even come with him to the interview because I was not interested to moving back to Marion. I was happy in my nice southern, warm climate, but as it turns out, the long and short of it is it was God’s place for Mike. So, I came along dragging my heels behind me, I’m quite sure at the beginning.”

Eventually B.J. Fratzke got on board and soon started working at Indiana Wesleyan University too. The Fratzkes said they have never had a problem working at the same institution.

B.J.: “Because we’re in different departments we have totally been OK with it.”

Mike: “You talk about working at the same place… I won’t accept term papers from her. [We]  maintain that separate identities.”

The Fratzkes talk about how the keys to their marriage are communication, giving and admitting you are wrong… sometimes.

B.J.: “I would [say] you really have to have a connectedness between the three of you: the two of us and God. Marriage is work and marriage is a lot of giving, but it’s joyful giving.”

Mike: “To remain teachable.”

B.J.: “That’s a perfect one: Remaining teachable is important, and having a sense of humor, and honestly being able to on occasion admit that you are wrong.”

Mike: “I was going to say on a rare occasion.”

B.J.: “When you really, really are [wrong], admit it and move on grow from it. Relationships are a lot about communication.”

Mike: “And spending time together.”

It wasn’t a secret that she was interested. He finally realized he was too … the day she decided to give up.

For Keith and Wendy Puffer, the turning point in their relationship came after becoming friends and co-workers while working as full time missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ on Illinois State University’s campus.

Keith Puffer worked with men on campus while Wendy ministered to women.

“Work drew us together; ministry drew us together,” said Keith Puffer. “We were the only singles amidst all the predictions of what would happen to us.”

Still, the Puffers both say they started out as complete opposites.

“It wasn’t a natural fit at the time,” said Wendy Puffer. “From the outside, it definitely didn’t look like we would fit together as a couple.”

At first, she thought he was entirely focused on his job. He said she was too playful.

“My first impression was that work was his highest priority. But the more I got to know him, work was really his way of building relationships with people. He was really interested in the guys he was discipling; he spent a lot of time focusing on them and helping them, giving them good advice in the context of work,” Wendy Puffer said. “So that was the way he built relationships. But for my misconception, I would have thought it was just work.”

“Wendy was really playful. She played a lot. She didn’t have an intensity that I thought she should. Which I don’t think was fair. She just had a different kind of intensity … it was different from me,” said Keith Puffer. “And she was just as dedicated to the women that she was working with and dedicated to the ministry that we had set our hearts toward and so I think that overly playful first impression wasn’t accurate.”

Over several years of friendship, the two became closer, sharing ministry and life experiences. But Wendy Puffer wanted more. Despite their differences, she was interested in a romantic relationship with her spouse-to-be and pursued him accordingly. Fiercely independent, Keith Puffer wasn’t interested in being pursued.

“I didn’t want to be a person that just gave in to her pursuit,” he said.  “I genuinely wanted my own pursuit. And so it’s just easier if she could do all the work, that’s fine. But that wasn’t going to cut it for me.”

So Wendy Puffer gave up.

“As soon as she stopped pursuing, then my attraction deepened,” said Keith Puffer. “I spent so much time pushing her away that when she stopped pursuing me, I didn’t have to push and it’s like, ‘Oh, I really like this girl.’”

“So my advice for single women is be patient,” said Wendy Puffer.  “It’s worth the wait!”

Three years after initially meeting, the two married.

After their wedding, the Puffers moved into Chicago, where they worked as a ministry team through Moody Bible Institute. Two and a half years into their marriage, Wendy Puffer found out she was pregnant.

“It was a lot of work. It was hard, partly because financially [it] was really tight, and [we were] still working through a lot of things that we were learning in our dating relationship and engagement,” Wendy Puffer said. “Continuing that into the marriage relationship was still pretty tough the first couple years, I would say.”

This year, the couple will celebrate 25 years of marriage. Twenty-one of those years have been spent working at Indiana Wesleyan University.

The couple moved to Marion in 1991, when Keith Puffer took a position as the resident director of Williams Hall and began to teach developmental psychology as an adjunct professor. Today, he works as a full-time professor of psychology.

Wendy Puffer joined IWU’s faculty in 2000 as an adjunct professor for the art department. After working part-time for seven years, she pioneered the interior design program at the school and began to teach full time as an assistant professor of art.

“We’ve always helped and worked with college students,” Wendy Puffer said. “So I think that it’s a passion for the same thing, even if we were doing different jobs, is what would keep us feeling like we had that mutual motivation for what we do.”

The shared passion for youth has helped to define the Puffers’ marriage.

“We can get excited about the same things and frustrated about the same things,” said Wendy Puffer. “And when we meet challenges, we really understand each other.”

Dr. Wilbur Williams did not kiss dating goodbye – he almost did, though, after his junior year – girlfriend said she didn’t want to marry him.

“She was everything that I wanted: totally dedicated to the Lord, … she played the piano, she had blonde hair – everything that I thought was nice,” said Williams, associate professor of Biblical literature at Indiana Wesleyan University.

He said when he asked the woman, Helen, if she would marry him, she thought about it for a few days, then eventually said no in a letter. With a broken heart, Williams vowed not to date again, until he met “the one.” It took him awhile before he realized “the one” was with him the whole time.

Ardelia Smith was Williams’ best friend.

“Ardelia became my go-to girl to find out what a girl was like,” Williams said. “I never even thought about dating her because she’s older than I am.”

Williams said he didn’t want to date a woman if it didn’t end up in marriage. He asked Smith to help him find the right one: “Check her out. See how she keeps her room.” He’d ask Smith, “Is she a flirt?”

One day during his senior year, Williams was walking down Harmon Street, the same street he and his wife now live on, and he prayed, asking God where “the one” was. He said he heard God tell him to see what he already been given.

In December 1950, Williams’ work had a Christmas party. Williams and another man were the only ones who weren’t married. A coworker insisted he bring a date.

Williams related, “He said, ‘Wilbur, you can’t come stag!’ I said, ‘But I’m off girlfriends!’ He said, ‘Well, ask your best friend.’

So Williams invited his best friend, Ardelia Smith.

When Williams asked her to be his date, Smith knew that he was who she was going to marry.

That Christmas party was their first date. They went on other dates and “really hit it off,” Williams said.

The problem came when Williams realized he had four competitors, including a scientist.

“The thing I didn’t know [was] she was so poor,” Williams said. “I didn’t know until we were married that she lived on banana and peanut butter sandwiches and sometimes she was so weak she fainted. She didn’t have enough to eat.” Smith went on dates for the free meals.

Williams said he was thankful he didn’t get upset with her over the other men, not realizing the true reason she dated them.

“One year from then we were married,” Williams said. It was January 1952, a Friday night.

The Williamses now have three daughters and seven grandchildren. Two of their daughters are artists, like their mother.

After 60 years of marriage, the Williamses still go out on dates to see concerts and musicals. This summer they plan on traveling to Ireland together.

“This is what has to happen: I believe every couple was made incomplete purposely,” Williams said. “There’s a mystic belief that … God made one soul. Half he gave to Adam; half he gave to Eve, so that when they came together they were complete, as two became one. That would mean soul as well as body. You know, after 60 years, that’s the case with us.”

Ardelia Williams said of her husband, “I wouldn’t trade him for anything.”

Coach Mark DeMichael, described himself as a college freshman as rough around the edges and immature. Kim DeMichael described him as cute.

The DeMichaels met when they both were attending Eastern Nazarene College. Kim DeMichael was a senior. Mark DeMichael was only a freshman. The two met through Mark DeMichael’s older sister, his future wife’s mentor.

“I had heard about her from my sister. When she would come home from college, she would talk about this great upperclassman who had adopted her as her little sister, and she would just rave about how great this Kim Cubie was,” said Mark DeMichael. “So, when I got to college my freshman year one of the first thing my sister did was introduce me to Kim.”

Mark DeMichael called their first date a “pity date.”

“No, it wasn’t a pity date,” said Kim DeMichael. “I didn’t really know [him], but I trusted the fact that I liked Chris. So that was a good thing so just go with it.”

The DeMichaels went to Friendly’s and shared an ice cream Sundae. They continued dating into the next year. Once Kim DeMichael finished her graduate work she said she was ready to grow up.

“Well, with our age we’re only two and half years apart,” said Kim DeMichael. “But were kind of at that point where I was like get a job, get a life.”

“And I was still hooked up on college,” said Mark DeMichael.

Kim DeMichael ended up moving to southern California to teach and they went to being just friends. They stayed in touch and got together in the summer, but it was not until Mark DeMichael  graduate college that they decided to end things for good.

“The summer after my senior year we decide we were going to get together face-to-face and just say this is over. We’re not going to be together anymore,” said Mark DeMichael.  “And we got together to do that, because we were doing it long distance, but we had a lot of fun.”

“We always had fun together,” said Kim DeMichael.

“We actually went to church that night … oh, this is going to make it sound really corny and church-ish,” said Mark DeMichael. “But we both felt like it wasn’t over yet.”

They decided that they would start looking for jobs in the same state. Eventually, Mark DeMichael found a job in southern California in the same school district as Kim. They got married the following summer.

“He came out and we dated for that fall,” said Kim DeMichael. “Then we got engaged that January and then got married in July.”

“It moved pretty quick once we got in the same state,” said Mark DeMichael.

The DeMichaels have worked at the same place their entire married life. They eventually made their way to Indiana Wesleyan University. They say working in the same place has never been an issue.

“I think it has always been fun that similar interest though we taught different things and different grade levels,” said Kim DeMichael. “We have [always] had a passion for youth. So I think we had common sense of mission, sense of purpose.”

“We looked at our work our professional [life] as an extension of our partnership,” said Mark DeMichael.