TKE of the Week—Impromptu Marriage Proposal Enlists Tau Kappa Epsilon’s Help.

When a story begins, “So this guy walks into the TKE house out of the blue…” you would hardly expect it to end in marriage.

Dan Dwyer, a Tau Kappa Epsilon ’90 alumus, stopped by the TKE house on Oct. 15 and asked for two TKEs to help him hang a sheet sign asking his girlfriend to marry him. He and Lisa Williams Smith, ’91  Kappa Delta alumae, met on the campus over 20 years ago, but only started dating about three years ago after reconnecting on Facebook.

While Dwyer originally meant to call the current TKE house about the proposal, a busy week forced him to make last minute plans. Explaining that he was an alumnus, Dwyer was met with both applause and a majority of the house to help hang the sign.

His Smith looked around the KC with her mother while the TKEs hung the sign, and he brought her out to see the sheet while the helpers ran to hide.

“I knew I wanted to propose on Albion’s campus when we stopped by a few years ago,” Dwyer said. “I gave them the sheet sign and it was like out of a movie, seeing everyone run out. It definitely made a memory that Lisa and I will never forget.”

Dwyer’s romantic gesture was compounded by the on-call brotherly love it employed.

“We helped him at the drop of a hat. He asked for two and got twenty,” William Larimar, Granville, OH. senior, said. “Everyone who was around the house at the time went and helped, there was no one staying behind. It wasn’t an individual effort—it was everyone.”

The impromptu request reminded Omega chapter TKEs that brotherhood is a lifetime commitment that doesn’t end on graduation day.

“I think it says that the Brotherhood doesn’t end after graduation,” Christopher Mantay, Novi junior, said. “We had never met before, but shoot, he’s a TKE—he’s a brother. We were all psyched about it, and really happy we helped a brother in the bond make one of the biggest decisions of his life.”

Dwyer agreed and offered his own sentiments on the meaning of brotherhood.

“I feel that the brotherhood and the sense of it I knew at Albion, it’s pretty much the same. It made it that much more special to have them part of it.”