RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE

Mr. Sleepyhead, shy coed meet, form a covalent bond

Sherry and Walter Ahring on their wedding day, April 10, 1969
Sherry and Walter Ahring on their wedding day, April 10, 1969

Sherry Smirl and Walter Ahring had chemistry ... class together in 11th grade.

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“I thought Walter was cute, sleepy and smart,” Sherry Ahring remembers. “He did fall to sleep in class, especially study hall. He was always a sleepyhead. Just still a growing boy at 16 I guess.”

"I wasn't sure if we had good chemistry together then, but after we had our first date I was sure there was chemistry," Sherry says.

The first time I saw my spouse:

She says: “He was very good-looking. He looked like a little Greek god. He had dark hair, olive complexion, big brown eyes.”

He says: “I thought she was gorgeous.”

On our wedding day:

She says: “We had a blast. I remember walking down the aisle in that big cathedral in my formal wedding dress. It was at 8 p.m. on a Thursday, and I had to go to a nursing class during the day — I think it was pharmacology — but they let me leave early.”

He says: “I just was worried about getting there on time and making sure that all my groomsmen showed up.”

My advice for a long happy marriage is:

She says: “Have patience.”

He says: “Talk things through.”

Walter transferred to Hall High from Central for his junior year.

Both of them were above-average students, but Walter was an outgoing and popular guy, and he noticed that she was quite shy.

"I thought Walter was cute, sleepy and smart," Sherry says. "He did fall to sleep in class, especially study hall. He was always a sleepyhead. Just still a growing boy at 16 I guess."

They worked together sometimes in chemistry labs and chatted occasionally, but she had no reason to believe he was interested in her.

"He was dating a girl at the time," she says.

While school was out for the summer, however, Sherry's home phone rang and she heard Walter's voice on the other end of the line.

Walter was no longer dating that other girl, and he wanted to know if Sherry would go with him to see a movie.

She was pleasantly surprised to hear from him and, of course, agreed to be his date.

They saw Tom Jones, starring Albert Finney, at a theater downtown.

"I think we sat in the balcony," Sherry says.

They started seeing each other as often as they could after that, going to drive-in movies, water skiing at Walter's dad's vacation house on Lake Hamilton, swimming at Lake Nixon, skating at Troy's Rollerdrome.

Walter played golf and Sherry didn't like sitting at home alone on weekends while he did 18 holes, so she convinced him to let her walk the course along with his group.

They also liked going to the watermelon stand at 12th Street and Fair Park Boulevard, on a lot that is now home to a Walgreens.

"It was just wonderful," Sherry says. "We didn't have a lot of money but we would get watermelon for 25 cents a slice. We would sit at the picnic tables and they had lights strung up and that was a really fun date."

Walter and Sherry were a couple throughout their senior year and departed for the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville the following fall. They were only there for one semester before returning to central Arkansas. Walter started classes at Little Rock University, what is now the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Sherry went to nursing school, first at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia and then at what is now the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.

He proposed just before he left on a family trip to Colorado in the summer of 1968.

"She had boys calling her and saying she didn't have a ring on," Walter says. So he took her home one evening after a date and asked if she would marry him.

They went together to the jewelry store and picked out a ring, and as soon as it was sized to fit her finger he put it on, thereby labeling her "taken."

They were married on April 10, 1969, in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. A wedding reception at Trapnall Hall followed the ceremony.

The situation in Vietnam was heating up and Walter opted to join the Air National Guard, which required him to drop out of school and leave for Lowry Air Force Base near Denver for basic training, just 10 days after their wedding.

"That was a tragedy," says Sherry, who finished nursing school that year.

She joined him in Denver when he started technical reconnaissance school, and the newlyweds moved back to Little Rock when he finished three months later.

She went to work at Baptist Hospital and he went back to school, graduating with a degree in biology in 1972 and then joining the Air National Guard stationed at Adams Field. He worked for his father at Little Rock Shade and Blind Co., which later became Little Rock Drapery Supply, and then opened a delivery company.

Sherry left Baptist not long after she started to go work for the Arkansas Department of Health. She retired in 2000 from her full-time job but worked part time for another eight years.

In January 2012, Walter had a major brain hemorrhage and has been partially paralyzed since. Sherry has stayed by his side, caring for him every day.

They renewed their wedding vows on May 30 in a ceremony at their home.

"There were gladiolas on the fireplace, English ivy on the mantel, a beautiful bouquet with silver candelabras on the dining room table. It was officiated by the Rev. Paul McClain from Trinity and we had a reception ...," Sherry says. "It was very nice. It was a special day."

If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or email:

cjenkins@arkansasonline.com

High Profile on 06/14/2015

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