At Homecoming 2000, “A Hollywood Homecoming,” Zach won a prize: A trip for two to Los Angeles to see a taping of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Instead of traveling to L.A., he opted to take the cash value, and with it, he purchased a ring for Mandy Lichtenberg, whom he’d been dating for more than two years. He popped the question about six months later.
Mandy remembers an instant connection, becoming best friends with Zach almost the minute they met in 1998. She was introduced to him thanks to the fraternity and sorority life office, but they had many other things in common. She soon became his confidante, and they often talked over frozen yogurt. However, he was dating someone else.
“I finally asked Zach — as friends — to the Alpha Delta Pi formal in April,” Mandy said. “He said yes and broke up with his girlfriend the next day.”
Even then, they occasionally fought their attraction. “Once we realized that we were meant to be together, we decided to take a break. No matter how hard we tried to ignore each other and stay apart, we always ended up at the same place, in the same room and together.”
One of Mandy’s favorite memories was when Zach, a member of the men’s a cappela group the Beartones, announced to a concert crowd he was engaged.
“There were a lot of upset girls,” she said.
After their engagement, they graduated, (Mandy with a bachelor’s in middle school education and Zach with a bachelor’s in religious studies), got married and went to graduate school. They spent the first two years of their marriage living in an undergraduate residence hall in Tennessee until Zach earned a master’s in college student personnel in 2004. Mandy received her master’s in secondary school administration from another Missouri university in 2009.
Now they’ve settled down in the St. Louis area with their children — Ansley, 6, Grady, 3, and a baby on the way. Mandy is the assistant principal for the freshmen class at Lafayette High School, and Zach is a corporate trainer for KnowledgeLake, Inc., where he uses his skills in leadership to train executives.
They look back fondly on their time at Missouri State.
“We have memories of so many different places — the Theta Chi house, the ADPi house, the soccer fields for intramurals, the Greek life office in the union,” Mandy said. “We covered almost every inch of the campus, making memories everywhere we went.”
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