Students at a Maryland elementary school, perhaps wise in the way of pop quizzes, recently turned tables on their teacher to help her suitor pop the “big question.”
Knowing how much his girlfriend, Becky Klein, loved teaching her 6th graders at Summit Hall Elementary School in Gaithersburg, Craig Nelson, the owner of a hardware business, figured out a rather engaging way to include them in the courtship.
First, he arranged for Ms. Klein to be lured out of the classroom for a meeting with the principal. Upon her return, she saw her 24 homeroom students lined up against a wall, each holding up a piece of paper with a letter on it. Taken together, the letters spelled out the question, “Becky, will you marry Craig?” While students giggled and a friend videotaped the romantic moment, the anxious suitor waited approximately eight seconds on bended knee before a stunned Ms. Klein could say “yes.”
Mr. Nelson had nothing but praise for his junior matchmakers.
“I tried to keep the message a secret,” he said. “One girl figured it out, but no one let it slip.”
Ms. Klein recalls being astonished by the spectacle. “When I first walked into the room, I thought, ‘How can I get him out of here gracefully?’” she said.
Students seemed as excited as the happy couple themselves. Some re-enacted the scene; others gave Mr. Nelson a hearty slap on the back, saying he would be marrying “the sweetest girl.”
“One boy even cried; it was that emotional,” remarked a still amazed Ms. Klein.
