David Brown remembers seeing Allison Baugh-Sherrill when she was just 9 years old.
"She was on the Tilt-a-Whirl at the Garland County Fairgrounds," he says of that day in 1972.
The first time I saw my future spouse:
He says: “It wasn’t my wife, it wasn’t my girlfriend it was just a little girl I kind of knew.”
She says: “He was my knight in shining armor.”
On our wedding day:
He says: “My feet were heavy and I could hardly pick them up during our vows.”
She says: “Everything about that day was beautiful.”
My advice for a long happy marriage:
He says: “Respect your wife, love your wife and communicate. Just the good old stuff.”
She says: “Communicate. And you love somebody no matter what.”
David's father and Allison's uncle were both police officers, and David and Allison were at the fair on a day set aside for the families of people in law enforcement.
Allison remembers David from when she was 11 or 12 years old.
"I was camping with my church youth group. I was too young to go and the older girls were mad so they took all my clothes out of the shower house and put them outside while I was showering," she says, adding she was allowed to go before she was old enough. "David put them back inside. He was my knight in shining armor."
They went to junior high school together in Hot Springs but weren't well-acquainted.
"He was quite a flirt and he was two years ahead of me in school," she says. "Everybody knew David Brown, and I just stayed in the shadows."
After she graduated from high school in 1982, they were cruising through Hot Springs with a bunch of other people around their age.
"We had seen each other before but that's really how we met," she says.
Their romance ended almost as soon as it began. Allison got pregnant and decided David would not be the kind of father she wanted him to be.
"I wasn't going to force anything on him, and I had plenty of family support," she says.
He called several times to ask how she and the baby, Anna, were doing.
"I would always put him off. He had made different lifestyle choices than I had made," she says.
Allison got an associate's degree and was a junior majoring in business at a four-year college when she realized she didn't fit the mold of a typical businesswoman.
"I could do it and I could do it well but I wouldn't have been happy," she says.
She went to work with her family's business, Sugar's Concessions -- among the first in the state to offer funnel cakes -- traveling around the country for festivals, fairs and other events.
"I liked what they were doing, I enjoyed it and I was good at it," she says.
David, in the meantime, was promoted to manager at a sporting goods store and moved to Jonesboro. His mother became ill and he asked Allison for her prayers.
Allison was happy to oblige, but she didn't see what was coming next. David's mother died, and her death spurred him to re-evaluate his life.
"He said he knew life was short and he thought he was ready to be a dad," she says. "I said, 'Oh, I don't think so.'"
Allison's father, though, encouraged her to give him a chance. They invited him to work with them, and Allison picked him up at the store he was managing for a meeting about Memphis in May festival so he could learn how things worked in the business.
"That's when I knew there might be something there for us," David says. "I remember exactly what she looked like that day, when she got out of her car and walked into the store."
Allison wasn't convinced. They went on the road together for three months -- her father decided to stay behind on that trip, but their daughter and the other people working for her were there for the duration.
"I knew I needed to get along with him, but it wasn't easy," she says. "I thought, my life is simple, I can do this without anybody else."
They took Anna on a vacation together, but things still didn't feel right to Allison.
"We stopped seeing each other -- and then Bill Clinton ran for president," she says. "David grew up in the same neighborhood as Bill. He mowed their yard, fed their dog and did everything that you do when you're in the neighborhood and you're friends."
David asked her to an election night watch party.
"I said, 'Well, that sounds like fun and I can go just as friends,'" she says.
After the election, David wanted to know if they could take Anna to the inauguration.
"It was the chance of a lifetime," she says. "So I said, yes, we could go."
The trip to Washington was a turning point. Allison agreed to marry David, and they planned a wedding that suited their personalities -- a ceremony in Arlington Park on April 18, 1993, with a three-tiered Rice Krispies cake and hot dogs alongside dainty finger foods.
"It was truly a celebration," she says. "But David was getting married forever and in the back of my mind ... I've got to do this for one year. We had a rough few years."
David and Allison have three children -- Anna Mitchell, Grace Anne Brown and Will Brown, all of Hot Springs. They also have three grandchildren.
Their marriage hasn't always been easy. But today their business is thriving, and they enjoy being side-by-side every day.
"And at the end of the day it's just me and her," David says.
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High Profile on 06/03/2018