Sealed with a kiss

RELEASED: Feb. 8, 2007

DANVILLE, KY—With Valentine's Day just around the corner, love is in the air on Centre College's campus.

According to campus legend, any Centre couple that kisses at midnight while standing on the brass College seal in front of Old Centre (the College's oldest building) will marry after graduation. The folklore hasn't been scientifically tested, but the proliferation of "double alum" weddings reported in the alumni magazine CentrePiece would lend support to the notion.

Caroline Stone '07 and Mitchell Waldner '06 kissed on the seal during the spring of Waldner's senior year at Centre.

"We were walking from North campus to the fraternity houses one night with my older sister who was visiting," Stone says. "We were showing her Old Centre and telling the story of the seal. We realized then that, even though we'd always talked about it, we had never actually kissed on the seal. It was pretty close to midnight so we ran over there right then."

Stone and Waldner both grew up in Frankfort, Ky. Although they went to school together from preschool through college, the two didn't officially start dating until their sophomore and junior years in high school.

"We both went to GSP [Governor's Scholars Program] at Centre and had heard the story of kissing on the seal while we were there. Even before we actually went to Centre it was something we said we were going to do once we got there," Stone says.

The two married this past December in Louisville surrounded by family and friends, many of whom are connected to the College.

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Founded in 1819, Centre College is ranked among the U.S. News top 50 national liberal arts colleges. Centre alumni, known for their nation-leading loyalty in annual financial support, include two U.S. vice presidents and two Supreme Court justices. For more, visit http://www.centre.edu/web/elevatorspeech/

For news archives go to http://www.centre.edu/web/news/newsarchive.html.