All because two Danville kids fell in love!

She was a small town girl, a 2003 graduate of Boyle County High School headed for the University of Kentucky in the sprawling metropolis of Lexington. He was a small town boy, a 2002 graduate of Danville High School with his sights set on Centre College; Danvillians affectionately refer to his kind as ‘townies.’ In January of 2014 Morgan began working as the Director of Marketing & Technology for RE/MAX Creative Realty. As she became acquainted with the office staff and assortment of Realtors (numbering almost 70 at that time), several people mentioned that there was a guy from Danville among them ‘about her age’ named Bennett Clark. “Never heard of him,” was her consistent reply. As winter turned to spring, Morgan made it her mission to incorporate some team building into the social structure of the company, namely through volleyball. A few enthusiastic souls expressed interest, and soon after the first Marikka’s volleyball team was born! Finally, the two met. She, by virtue of over a decade of experience, was the best on the team. He, a former tennis coach who once competed in a US Open qualifier, brought lots of athleticism to the court. Both were very competitive and stubborn, not often seeing eye-to-eye, but nevertheless an easy friendship and camaraderie formed. Fast forward to present: 'House divided' so they say, but both proudly representative of Title Town!

Each spring Bennett (and in recent years Morgan) ventures to Las Vegas for R4, the annual RE/MAX conference, then jets off to Sandestin for the annual owners meeting with his family. Morgan has family in Shalimar, about 45 minutes west, whom she visits as often as possible, at least once a year. This year (thanks to COVID) R4 was elsewhere and the owners meeting was canceled, but they decided to keep the panhandle in their plans: Sandestin >> New Orleans >> Biloxi. After a last-minute nightmare with the car rental and a bleary-eyed 4 am car ride to CVG, it was smooth sailing and they landed at VPS bright and early on Wednesday March 3. As soon as they got checked in, Bennett was anxious to go for a beach walk. (Note: Morgan almost didn’t let this happen because it was less than 75°, meaning she was already freezing to death.) Upon hitting the sand, Bennett started clowning, running ahead of Morgan to show off how he and his cousin Ryan used to leave messages in the sand for people as kids. Morgan teased him, saying “write me something sweet.” He ran far ahead, crouching to scrawl something seemingly long. When she reached his message it read: “Will you marry me?” She laughed, turning around to see him getting on one knee, and immediately said something like “Oh my gosh, stop it, that’s not funny!” When he spoke the words out loud, she whipped around to read the message again, still stunned and disbelieving. As he produced a drawstring sunglasses bag concealing a ring, she realized it might be a real proposal, and shock turned into a flood of emotion. Did she ever officially say yes? Neither can quite remember, but they’ll never forget a woman named Candy who narrowly missed stepping in the sand message moments after the proposal, or a nice man named Tom Davis who circled them like the paparazzi to take 30+ photos when they tried to retrace their steps about an hour later and find the exact proposal spot - which, rumor has it, was right behind Jerry Jones’ house.