Donna Baskett wasn't impressed by the car George Beyers revved when he passed her every afternoon. It was too strong, too powerful -- the roar of the engine scared her, in fact.
Donna graduated from high school in rural Cooperton, Okla., in 1963, and moved to Oklahoma City to work as a file clerk for the same company as her big sister. George worked there, too, as a draftsman.
The first time I saw my spouse:
She says: “I thought he was nice-looking and wanted to date him.”
He says: “Well, I didn’t remember seeing her before.”
My advice for a long happy marriage:
She says: “Have a lot of patience.”
He says: “Learn the meaning of the word ‘no’ and take a lot of cold showers.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “I was scared to death. I was so relieved it was over. I remember he cried. I couldn’t figure out why he was crying — if he was crying because he was unhappy or if he was crying because he was nervous.”
He says: “I’m sure I was nervous, but I don’t remember that far back.”
Donna's roommate gave her a ride to work in the mornings and because she always arrived about 15 minutes early, she would go sit with her sister, a switchboard operator, for a while before going across the street to the building where she worked. George passed by the switchboard each day with a greeting for her sister, but he never spoke to Donna.
In the afternoons, Donna finished work before her sister, and would walk through an alley to get to her sister's building.
"He parked behind the building in the alley and he would come across the sidewalk and never look," says Donna. "I guess he was thinking there weren't that many people out at that time or ... I don't know what he was thinking, but he would come down that alley and just go flying right out in the street."
George's thought process was quite simple.
"I just wanted to hear the pipes rattle on the buildings," says George, who was 23 at the time.
She might have been awed by his red Ford Falcon Sprint with the Tudor hardtop -- it was worthy of admiration -- but aside from being startled by the racket, she was of the opinion that cars were merely modes of transportation.
"He never noticed me that I knew of," says Donna, who was 17. "But I told my sister that I thought he was cute and I wouldn't mind dating him."
Her sister informed her that George was not available, and Donna didn't give him much more thought.
"That was the end of that," she says.
She left that company for a new job soon after.
On a Sunday evening a year or so later, she and a friend had gone out of town for the weekend and stopped at a drive-in restaurant on the way home.
"We would just go to the drive-in and get out and roam around and that's how we met people," she says. "You know how Happy Days used to be, with the drive-in? Well, that's what we did back then."
She and her friend had met a couple of guys that night and those guys were sitting in the backseat of Donna's car. Donna and her friend were turned around in the front seat chatting with them.
"We were making dates with them, really, but that didn't work out," she says.
It didn't work out because that's when George pulled up next to them.
She recognized him right away and called him by name.
"I said, 'Hi, George Beyers,'" she says. He didn't recognize her. "I picked him up. He did not pick me up. Those guys got out of the backseat and George and his friend climbed in and we were married about six months later."
Donna and George and their friends rode around in his car for a while that night, and he invited her to his house for a little party the next night, a Monday.
A couple of days later, he called her office and asked for "Donna Bucket."
"The receptionist knew who she was," laughs George.
It was George who proposed, asking her what kind of ring she would like and then buying it and putting it on her finger.
"I'm still wearing that same ring," she says.
They exchanged their vows on March 27, 1965.
George and Donna lived in Oklahoma, Texas and California after they married. For the last 25 years they have called Benton home.
They have two sons, Gary of Temple, Texas, and Grant of Fort Bragg, N.C.
Donna and George's family organized an anniversary dinner for them and then sent them on a cruise to Cozumel and Progreso, Mexico.
They joined a bowling league through George's company right after they were married, and over the years Donna has scored two 300 games -- good enough to get her name listed in the National Bowling Hall of Fame. She serves on the Central Arkansas Women's Bowling Association's board of directors.
She and George ran his father's office machine company together for several years and retired in 2014.
George traded his Falcon Sprint in for a Pontiac Grand Prix not long after marrying. Several cars later he has found the vehicle he's been looked for all along -- a 1928 Model A Ford Roadster pickup. He won first place at the Mid America Old Time Automobile Association Spring Show in 2003 for its restoration, and can often be seen driving it around central Arkansas, sometimes with Donna at his side. "It's a good life," says George, "and many more anniversaries are expected."
If you have an interesting how-we-met story or if you know someone who does, please call (501) 378-3496 or email:
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High Profile on 05/03/2015