The Johnsons

If you walk into the lower floor of the English pod, you can find Trish Johnson teaching ninth grade English, Basic Composition, and Survey of Literature 10, and one set of stairs above her classroom, you can find her husband, Darin Johnson, or DJ as he is known to The Web staff. The Johnsons met in 1999, when they were set up by friends. DJ was at a wedding when he was asked by friends if he was seeing anyone at the time.

“I wasn’t seeing anyone,” he said. “So they said that they had a friend, a teacher in Des Moines, and that they’d like to introduce us.”

Trish Johnson was similarly approached by her friends.

“They asked me how I met men, and I said, ‘I don’t’,” she said. When her friends proposed a blind date, however, she was wary about going out with someone she had never met before, but agreed to a group date with four other couples.

“I felt a lot of pressure at the time because I felt like everyone was watching the two of us the whole time,” DJ said. Trish Johnson, however, did not notice. She was distracted by his charm.

“There was a seat next to him, and I thought he loo

ked cute, and he told this story about walking to school, and how a bird went to the bathroom on his clothes, and the way he told the story was very funny. So I was like, ‘He’s kind of a funny guy’,” Trish Johnson said.

Unfortunately, DJ’s charm did not remind him to ask a very important question. “At the end of the meal, we were in the parking lot and we were just kind of talking, and he goes, ‘Well, have a nice school year.’ I was like, uh, ‘Okay’. I didn’t think it would go anywhere,” Trish Johnson said. “

I did not ask Trish for her phone number, which was a tragic mistake,” DJ said.

Despite having the odds stacked against him, DJ was able to call her again close to Valentine’s Day. But Trish Johnson was not interested in meeting that weekend.

“I didn’t want to do all the Valentine’s things,” she said.

“We almost didn’t go out again,” DJ added.

But Trish Johnson made time for him the following weekend. The rest is history, the Johnsons were engaged in August and married in December, and they have been together for 25 years.

The Webbs

James Webb, an English teacher, met his wife his freshman year of college in a coffee shop. She was the hostess, and that day the coffee shop was serving free coffee. “So we sat down, and I’m like, ‘So everything’s free right now? And she’s like, ‘Yeah.’ And I’m like, ‘What about you? Are you free right now?’,” Webb said.

She was not free. She had a boyfriend.

“She was like, ‘No, and I have a boyfriend.’ And I was like, ‘Oh so sorry’,” Webb said.

Her boyfriend turned out to be one of the guitarists Webb had met while he was auditioning for his college band. Not wanting to be a homewrecker, Webb kept his distance. Well, as best he could.

“That was kind of a bummer, but then I was able to just kind of keep making friends with her,” Webb said.

When they went on choir tour together, Webb bribed his friend to have them sit next to each other. They drove across the U.S. together, and they talked through it all.

“Before we knew it, they had broken up,” Webb said. This year the Webbs will celebrate their 30th anniversary. “We got married young,” Webb said. “I was 19, and she was 20. I don’t recommend that necessarily, but it worked out for us.”

The Sullivans

The Sullivans met in the space they would both later teach in- a high school. Aileen Sullivan, a Chemistry teacher at Ames High School, was finishing her senior year in high school.

“I played lots of sports, and our volleyball team was getting ready for a season in the fall, and into the gym walks Mr. Sullivan,” Aileen Sullivan said.

Joel Sullivan was a first year teacher at her high school at the time, but he was not her teacher. The Sullivans waited until Aileen had graduated high school before they started dating.

“I have known him since I was 17 years old, and he is five years older than I am. So he was 22 when he started teaching in my hometown,” she said.

The Sullivans have been together for 27 years.

The Engelkeses

Kate Engelkes, an AP Literature and Creative Writing teacher at Ames High, also met her now husband, Chaz Englekes, a teacher at the Ames Middle School, through mutual friends. Her friends told her Chaz was perfect for her, even before they had officially met.

“They’d show me pictures, and they’d talk about him. Everything would be like, ‘Oh, you like this music? Chaz likes that music! Oh, you like to eat food? Chaz likes to eat food! So they talked about him all the time,” Engelkes said.

Whenever she met other friends of Chaz, her friends would introduce her as, “Chaz’s girlfriend he doesn’t know about yet.”

But Engelkes thought he was cute, and that if he was as cool as everyone said he would be, she would like him. Finally, when Chaz returned from student teaching in Australia, Engelkes’ friend took her to meet him. When they pulled into the driveway she found him swinging on a tire swing outside of the house he was living in at the time. Chaz pulled Engelkes’ friend into a hug, and then he went to hug her. Chaz, like DJ, also forgot to ask for his future wife’s phone number. But he did remember to call Engelkes’ friend as they drove back home.

“We started talking a lot after that and have been together ever since,” Engelkes said.


The Grapps

Freshman and sophomore English teacher Alex Grapp met his now boyfriend on a dating app. Even over text, they felt an instant connection to one another.

“We both went to therapy and we were [both] joking about [how] there should be a green flag emoji and you know, stuff like that,” Grapp said.

On their first date Grapp and his boyfriend attended a drag show.

“I just remember sitting in the back with them, and just having a good time,” Grapp said.

Moving in together came just as naturally as spending time together did. Grapp found himself not even noticing that his boyfriend was staying over. 

Eventually Grapp found his boyfriend staying with him all the time, until they became inseparable.  

“We’d watch some TV together, and eventually he just started staying some nights, and then he just started staying all the time, and then we were just together,” Grapp recalled.

The Grapps have now been together for three years.

The Gormans

Walk into the history pod and you can find Josh Gorman teaching World Studies or U.S. History. One pod to the right, his wife teaches Spanish. The Gormans first met while working at Valentino’s together, but did not begin talking until much later.

“She was still in high school. I was in college, so I didn’t want to approach her at that time,” Josh Gorman said.

Kristine Gorman had gone to Spain but came back to Ames for a short while.

“She was actually in Ames for the weekend, and I thought she was going to Iowa State. So because I thought she was back in Ames, I thought I would shoot my shot,” Josh Gorman said.

Kristine was not back in Ames, however, and was going to fly out to Spain that weekend. She told Josh, however, that they would hang out when she got back.

“On our first date he made Chicken Alfredo in his apartment, and we just hung out and wrapped presents because it was Christmastime,” Kristine Gorman said.