Stacey Giles didn't want to be where she was when she met Brett Powell.
It was October 1987, and they were both students at then-Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe, La.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
She says: “I thought he was a nerd.”
He says: “I probably didn’t notice anything about her when I first met her. So, character flaw: I can be kind of dismissive when I first meet people and I was, I’m guessing. I probably didn’t think anything about it.”
On our wedding day:
She says: “It was not really anything out of the ordinary. We had been together, just the two of us, all the time for all of those years.
He says: “We were headed to Orlando after that, and I probably was mostly thinking about that.”
My advice for a lasting marriage is:
She says: “Boy, you really have got to be willing to compromise. You just have to be.”
He says: “Just let it go. There are things that happen that seem like they’re a big deal but they’re not and you just have to let it go.”
"My friend said, 'I met this boy and I'm not sure I want to go out with him, so I'm not going over there by myself. You have to come with me,'" Stacey says. "She had to persuade me, and then when I got over there, I just thought, 'These are two of the weirdest guys I have ever seen in my life.'"
Stacey grew up in Shreveport listening to pop and country music. The walls of this room, plastered with posters of the The Cure and R.E.M., were an affront to her senses.
"I was just thinking, 'We have got to get out of this room,'" she says.
Lucky for her, everyone decided to go play pool, and in that alternate setting, with other friends around, she and Brett had a chance to chat and get to know each other.
They spent a lot of time talking and soon realized they had a lot in common. They liked the same TV shows and they drove basically the same kind of car -- hers was a Dodge and his was a Plymouth, but they looked identical, right down to the silver paint.
"It was weird," she says. "They were these little hatchbacks, and it was just funny that they were the same car."
Her friend opted not to date the other guy, but Brett and Stacey made plans to get together the next night for a Chinese buffet.
"We were together all the time after that, except when we were sleeping and going to class," Brett says. He told Stacey he loved her eight days after they met.
"I said, 'No you don't,' and he said, 'Yes I do,'" she says.
Brett can't put his finger on what, exactly, led him to bare his heart so soon. "There are some people you just connect with, and that's what happened," he says.
After they started dating they realized that they should have met sooner. Stacey had taken Brett's first college roommate to a Sadie Hawkins Day dance when she was still in high school in Shreveport.
"He was from a different town than either of us, and it was just a coincidence that he lived with Brett," Stacey says.
Stacey's basketball team played in Ruston when she was a senior, and that guy went to watch her game. Brett was supposed to tag along but backed out at the last minute.
"I'm guessing I had a better offer," quips Brett, who is from Gillett.
In 1989, Brett graduated with a degree in accounting and moved to Little Rock for a job with an accounting firm. Stacey, two years behind him in school, left college to go home to Shreveport and work.
They saw each other as often as they could, though, and knew they would eventually marry. There was no big, elaborate proposal. When the time was right, they picked out a ring together at a chain jewelry store and started making plans.
"We just both always knew we were going to get married," Brent says. "Plus, I'm not really a romantic, so planning a big proposal was way beyond me."
They were planning a trip to Panama City Beach, Fla., in September 1993, to visit Brent's brother and sister-in-law.
"We said, 'You know what? We're just going to get married while we're there.' So we did," she says.
The two married Sept. 13, 1993, by a justice of the peace in a city park next to a burbling fountain in Panama City Beach. Brett's brother and sister-in-law went with them.
After honeymooning in Orlando, Fla., they moved to Little Rock.
In 2007, they moved to Arkadelphia, and Brett, former director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, joined Henderson State University as vice president for finance and administration. Stacey works for Fidelity National Information Services. Their daughter, Chandler, lives in Denton, Texas.
They still don't like the same music, but they have reached some middle ground.
"I've dragged him to more Reba McEntire and George Strait over the years, but I've never been to R.E.M. if that tells you anything," Stacey says. "We love old '60s music, like Buddy Holly and that kind of thing."
"We can both agree on the '80s channel on XM radio," Brett adds. "I'll listen to some country music, but not everything. Reba, not so much."
The Powells renewed their marriage vows in 2007, this time in front of their pastor at Geyer Springs First Baptist Church. They did it, in part, so they could enter into a covenant marriage.
"We didn't want it to be a show of anything," Stacey says. "We just wanted it to be us."
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High Profile on 10/15/2017