Karen (Yip) and Dave Taylor

Dave and Karen were both staying in Campbell Hall in the summer of 1987, and met in the kitchen while making lunch one day. Dave started a conversation with Karen, and soon after, asked her out to a 99-cent movie at the local cinema on Third Street.

“I remember we used to watch Perry Mason reruns while eating ramen and minute rice, and go grocery shopping at Food-4-Less. If it wasn’t for our summer work on campus, we would have never met because he was an accounting major with little music interest, and I was a music major,” said Karen.

Dave taught Karen how to ride a bike on the street behind Dana Hall, and Karen had him turn pages for her while she accompanied the local theater group in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s H.M.S. Pinafore on the piano.

They dated for about a year and a half, and then did not talk for almost 21 years after that. “I was curious about how life had turned out for Karen, and looked her up on Facebook. After much hesitation, I sent her a message in May 2009, and we began chatting instantly,” David said.

David and Karen found love again when he visited her in Singapore over Christmas that year, and they were engaged in January 2010. “It was both exciting and scary at the same time to abandon my career and join Dave in Wisconsin in October. Suddenly, I was a mom to his two boys and had to really cook!” said Karen. “We got married in Vegas in November 2010, and had our little Emily on March 3 this year,” David said.

During the summer of 2012, 25 years after they had first met, David and Karen returned to Linfield together to visit old friends and relive memories of their experiences there.