I first met Ed in the summer of 2018 during freshman orientation at Lamar University when I was tabling for student government (SGA) and he was an orientation leader. He smiled at me as he shyly introduced himself and inquired about SGA. A month or two later he reached out and wanted to meet with me regarding an idea he had to improve Lamar’s library hours. I was impressed as he researched all iterations of comparable university libraries to Lamar's library. We started spending more time studying together, and we went on a few dates. That spring I asked him to run with me as my secretary/treasurer for SGA. After we won the election, in August we both traveled to Austin for a meeting with the student representatives for the Texas State University System Board of Regents meeting. It was during that trip that he displayed what a kind, self-less, and responsible individual he was, and it was during that trip that I first fell for him. It was that fall that he and I officially started dating and 5 years later, here we are today!

I first saw Madison in the library freshman year studying for Intro to Engineering. I did not know her name at the time, so we referred to her in the boy's group chat as "Library Girl". As any other nerd, I obviously did not approach her. I kept to my studies, with an increased preference for being in the library, for a next few months until homecoming came around. I had to vote with sophomores for duke/duchess for the hours I had came in with, and one candidate was *Library Girl*. We found out her name and turns out not only was she beautiful but also involved in a ton of campus organizations! Wow. Too bad none of them applied to me (pre-law, business, etc)... wait except for student government association (SGA). Student gov had held a special place for me both in middle school and high school. Continuing at the collegiate level could be fun, but meeting times kept conflicting with my biology labs, semester after semester. I eventually realized I would need to make an actual effort outside of my schedule for this to have a chance and I looked around campus for something I'd like to change. Library closed at like 10:30 pm on Sunday-Thursday, which was basically when I started studying some nights. I thought the current hours in no way met the demands of the students, but I also knew comparing our resources to UT or TAMU wouldn't be fair as they have more monetary resources. I then filtered through every university in the country with roughly our student size and tuition and compiled a list of libraries with better hours than ours and made a list to present as grounds for extending our own hours. Using this, I reached out Madison to have something to talk about, as I still did not know how to flirt (but also wanted longer library hours). Anyways, that's how I started to introduce myself to my future wife. Today, Mary and John Gray Library is still open until 1:45 am Sundays-Thursdays and I am writing this on our wedding page, so it seems that both of these efforts have gone stunningly well. Thank YOU for being a part of it too. :)