Valentine's Tales: Susan and David Peck

It almost didn’t happen. I had graduated from the University of Denver in the spring of 1982 and was working for my hometown paper, the Riverton Ranger, when my good friend Paul said he knew of a girl named Susan that a friend of his from Utah State University had dated the previous summer while working in the area.

She’s really cute, he said, so of course I was interested. Paul set out to scout the current situation but came back with bad news: She was getting married. Well, that stinks, I said, but Paul didn’t seem completely sure about his information, and, indeed, his gathered intelligence was flawed. It was sister Sandra, not Susan, who was tying the knot. Whew.

So one day while Susan was working at Bill Pierce Jewelry, which was located inside BiRite Sporting Goods in Riverton, her coworker said to her, “I think there’s a guy over there looking at you” or words to that effect. She was right. Paul and I were lurking at the magazine rack as I got up the nerve to go meet her. I finally emerged from the aisle, walked to the jewelry counter and asked Susan out on a date. The rest is history.

We had to date for TWO YEARS while she finished her degree at Howard Payne University in Texas, and we were away from each other for months at a time. And remember, this was long before cell phones, and she only had one hallway phone in her dorm, with limited access, something like 10 minutes per call.

But it all worked out. I proposed over the Christmas holidays in 1983, I moved to Lovell in June of 1984 and we were married in August of 1984. Susan is my rock, my soul mate, my best friend and my loving partner in all that I do.

- David Peck