Ring Ring…               unknown number…                  and there it is!

My favorite phone call of the year.  It’s like Christmas Morning!  It’s the annual phone call from the OU Phon-a-thon!!!!

YESSSS!  And Ironically, it came a few days ago.   Just in time for today – OUr Day!

I might be the only person in the world that gets this excited about a telemarketer but I LOVE OU… I LOVE the Phon-a-thon and I LOVE all the reminders of how Denny and I ended up where we are today.  And this call is THE biggest reminder.

In an instant Denny and I are connected to the place where it all began via a current OU undergrad at the Phon-a-thon!  Don’t get me wrong, I love the life we lead today, but every year when we get our annual call, I become completely green (yes I intentionally said that) with envy of the person on the other line.  I can’t talk enough to them!

I ask them to tell me all about Court Street – the sights, the smells, the new bars.   I remind them that they should study less and stay out more.   I ask them to go to the Pub and have a fish bowl for me.  I ask them if they’ll go to Pita Pit for me.  I ask them to walk across College Green for me.

Normally they don’t know how to respond so it can sometimes get awkward by the time I ask them to sing Stand Up & Cheer, but sometimes I get a fun one and they just let me babble on about the land of Bricks and Beer!

But it’s not a Phon-A-Thon call without telling the poor kid on the other end of the phone WHY I love their call so much.  Truthfully, they probably would have hung up on me 20 minutes prior, but I wait to give them my Visa # until I tell them the story.  The story that started it all.  The call that changed my life.  Cliché, maybe.  Annoying, maybe.  But it’s the truth.  It was a call that changed my life.

The call on March 8, 2004 that connected me to Denny… my best friend, my hubby, the awesome Dad to Makenzie, the laundry do-er in our house (yes ladies he does the laundry), the man I’ll grow old with, the (sometimes) person that annoys me like crazy, the (frequently) person I annoy like crazy, the one who likes me just enough to deal with my crazy blogging, the one who still loves me when I’m cranky, grumpy, and hanging out on Sundays in gross sweats, but most importantly The One (the Only One) who said I Do to me at the same campus where he first said Hello to me.

Pretty cool, right?

Ahh to be young and in love again! (Almost 5 years and almost 15 pounds ago)

:: OUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOUOU  ::

So for those of you that haven’t read it/heard it/lived it with us, here it is ….

(can also be found by googling “Calling for Love” Erin Denny McGee”)

Calling for love Erin Quilty, BSC ’05, and Dennis McGee, BSC ’02

By Erin Quilty

 It was the type of cool, cloudy Athens afternoon that would have best been spent watching a movie with my sorority sisters. Instead I reluctantly agreed to work an extra Monday shift at the OU Phonathon.

Meanwhile in Washington, Pa., Denny McGee, a 2002 graduate, relished in the fact that his evening work meeting was unexpectedly cancelled. As fate would have it, these unforeseen changes in our evening schedules were the reason our paths crossed on that memorable March evening.

My Phonathon shift dragged on, and the name Dennis McGee popped up on my screen as the next alumni to call. Little did I know this name belonged to the man with whom I would one day grow old.

As I heard the phone ringing in my headpiece, I prepared for another conversation. “Hi Dennis, I’m Erin, a junior at Ohio University,” I said. Denny’s deep voice was full of enthusiasm as he talked about his time at OU. We immediately clicked, and the conversation flowed easily.

Although Denny was reluctant to donate, he was not shy to ask if he would ever talk to me again. I felt my heart beating in my throat when Denny asked if we could meet during his upcoming trip to Athens for baseball alumni weekend, but I politely declined. I knew immediately that I made a mistake turning down an opportunity to meet him, so I wrote down his number.

As I told my friends all about this amazing conversation, I was glowing. I could not explain the connection I felt with Denny, but I knew we both had found something special.

I could not stop thinking about Denny, so I turned to my favorite college research tool, Google.com. I found all of his OU baseball stats and also the Kalamazoo Kings Web site, which is Denny’s former independent minor-league baseball team. When I saw his charming smile, I knew I had to call him again.

It took me three days and a workout at Ping to finally get the nerve to call my alumni crush. As soon as I heard his voice on the other end of the line, I knew I had made the right decision. “Erin?” Denny asked. “Phonathon Erin?!? I was hoping to hear from you!” We talked another two hours that night and every night thereafter.

When Denny came to OU two months later for alumni baseball weekend, we were inseparable, and he continued to visit me almost every weekend until I graduated in June of 2005.

After two-and-a-half years of our long-distance relationship, I recently moved to Buffalo, N.Y., and we are finally together! Denny is a sales representative for R.J. Reynolds, and I am a sales manager at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Buffalo. We plan to someday get married on the campus of Ohio University.

Editor’s Note: Erin and Denny are engaged and have set a wedding date of Aug. 16, 2008, at Ohio University. The wedding party will consist of 10 former Bobcats. Congratulations!

Read the contest’s other finalist: The Jefferson Hall milkman

Posted 11-02-07

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