~*Katie & Bud*~ ❤️

It was the spring of 2007 and Katie had just graduated from ISU the previous December when she finally landed her first ‘grown up job’ as an Executive Assistant at EnvirOx back in her hometown community of Danville. April 16th was her first day and she was introduced to all the staff that day including the Quality Control Specialist, Darrin Hightower. At this point Darrin had already been with the company 4 years, starting out as a builder on the machine assembly line then working his way up to a team lead, QC Specialist and (eventually) outside sales representative. Katie was planning to keep her job at EnvirOx for 1 year, maybe 2 max, to save up money then head to the big city. Darrin was in another relationship and living his best life. Neither was looking for love at that time. Katie was 22, Darrin was23 Fast forward a few months and Katie was running late to work one morning and also driving her brand new Mitsubishi Eclipse. As she pulled into the parking lot spot she came a little too close to the Mazda 626 in the spot next to her and caused a minor fender bender. Low and behold the owner of the old Mazda was none other than Mr. Bud Hightower himself. After he got over the initial shock of his car getting clipped, he actually handled the whole situation quite well. This incident actually led to Darrin and Katie becoming really good work friends and even hanging out occasionally outside work including Darrins 24th Mardi Gras birthday party. Fast forward a few more months to Jan of 2008. Katie and Darrin had been at an all day company meeting and one of their co-workers was hosting a party at a local bar that night that a bunch of employees attended afterward. They ended up hanging out all night, dancing and having a blast. Darrin even went for it and they had their first kiss on the 3rd floor of Digital City.