The Collegian reached out to couples who met at Colorado State University to hear their stories: how they met, what they love about each other, what their favorite memories are and how CSU and Fort Collins have impacted their relationships. From married alumni to budding love, they all met organically — through shared classes, mutual friends, similar interests and shared values. These are some of their stories.
Vega Fecteau & Ori Becker
Vega Fecteau and Ori Becker met in joint mathematics classes their first year at CSU. Both are majoring in mathematics, and while it would not have been atypical to have multiple classes together, Fecteau and Becker found that they had a significant number of joint classes. A mutual friend introduced the pair, which initially sparked their relationship.
“Close to the beginning of our relationship, there was, like, one late night where it was raining and we were, like, ‘Let’s just go play in the rain,’ so we went by the lagoon,” Becker said.
Other favorite memories for the pair, who have been together for almost a year, include visiting the NoCo Cat Cafe, as both have immense love for cats.
“I would say I really like her patience and her intellect,” Fecteau said. “As I mentioned, we’re in the same major, so we’re both studying mathematics, so that’s not something a lot of people understand or can bond about. And so she understands me on a way deeper level that a lot of other people might not.”
Jasmyn Taylor & Dennis Princic
Both worked at the office of Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement in Fall 2024, where Jasmyn Taylor had been working for a year and Dennis Princic had just begun. They met at the SLiCE mountain retreat, but didn’t interact much. However, during this time, Taylor had developed a crush on Princic.
“I was like, ‘That’s my work crush; that’s my work man,’” Taylor said. “Work relationships can get a little messy quickly, and it was, like, my senior year. I didn’t want anything to go downhill, so it was going to be a little work crush.”
Then, Taylor fell on the stairs in Clark and broke her foot. She had to walk from Clark C to The Plaza, where she called into the office asking for help. Princic was on shift and came out to help Taylor, who was sitting on the concrete in pain.
Princic wheeled Taylor to her roommate’s car on a rolling chair. After that, they began talking, getting closer and attended the Marcello Hernandez comedy show together in April 2025. They officially became boyfriend and girlfriend after graduation.
“I probably came around a little later than she did, which I’m embarrassed to say, so funny, but, like, springtime in 2025 is when I definitely became very aware that I was super into Jazz and I wanted to date her and everything,” Princic said.
Mars Callanen & Joe Harlan
Mars Callanen and Joe Harlan met at Little Bird Bakeshop while grabbing coffee. Harlan spotted Callanen and went up to talk to them. Following that initial encounter, Harlan went home to wash their sheets, and Callanen went to a CSU football game.
“I kept tricking Joe into going out to concerts and stuff with me, and then I kept tricking Joe into letting me come over because (Joe’s) bed’s softer (than) mine,” said Callanen and Harlan, overlapping answers.
Callanen is a first-year student, and Harlan is a second-year. They have been together for five months.
“What I really like about them is their humor and their fashion style,” Harlan said. “It’s really good. And I do think they are quite literally the funniest person.”
Ella Smith & Harper Hall
Ella Smith and Harper Hall met back in high school, in a 2018 production of “Urinetown,” before they ever became friends. Years later, Hall came to CSU after Smith was already a student, and the two began working together in a research lab on campus, studying student experiences of transgender and gender-nonconforming students while also taking many classes together. They eventually became best friends before falling in love.
“She is a, like, phenomenal listener,” Smith said. “She just is very intuitive about listening and giving, like, being emotionally available and responsive and giving you kind of exactly what you need without you having to ask.”
Smith and Hall have been together for around a year, and some of their favorite memories include seeing the giraffes, Hall’s favorite animal, at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and watching all of the Jack Black movies together.
“My favorite part of Ella is how much they fill the air, how much I can listen to them for hours and hours and never get bored, and they can always have something new to say and something new for me to think about,” Hall said. “I feel like we don’t disagree on anything. They could speak for me. If I just shut my mouth forever and let them stream of consciousness for the rest of my life, I could be happy.”
Morgan Shirey & Denver Hicks
Morgan Shirey and Denver Hicks met at the Ram Welcome Build-a-Ram event last year when they were both first-year students. The line was long, and the pair ended up getting to know each other over the course of several hours spent waiting and, later, while building their stuffed rams. They continued to hangout during Welcome Week and began dating shortly after.
“I was just like, ‘I have no expectations, we’ll just see how it goes,’” Hicks said of that first few weeks they started hanging out. “And we clicked.”
Shirey and Hicks spent their first semester learning more about themselves and getting to know each other better. Now after more than a year together, they’ve settled into their relationship and have continued to grow together.
“One big thing, like, that is a foundational part of our relationship is just knowing that both of us aren’t perfect and knowing that it’s OK to forgive each other, and it’s OK to hold each other accountable,” Shirey said.
Shirey and Hicks said they bonded over both moving away from families who had begun new chapters in their absence, in addition to experiencing breakups.
“People didn’t think we would make it that long just because of the circumstances, but we figured each other out,” Hicks said. “We know what kind of things we struggle with and what kind of things we excel at, and we try to match each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”
Jen & Matt Hitt
Today, both Jen and Matt Hitt work on campus — Jen as a communications coordinator for the Warner College of Natural Resources, and Matt as an associate professor of political science. But their story began more than two decades ago, in fall 2004, when then-first-year Jen met Matt, the sophomore who lived in the room next door in Parmelee Hall.
Jen asked Matt to get breakfast with her one weekend, and he agreed. They saw a play for their first date in November 2004.
They were together for the rest of undergrad, but when Matt left for grad school at Ohio State University, Jen did not go with him and the couple broke up.
After returning to Colorado for a visit and reconnecting with Jen, Matt asked her to visit him in Columbus, Ohio, hoping she might join him there.
“I thought it was crazy, but you know, that’s what you do when you love someone,” Matt said.
Jen moved to Columbus, and the pair got engaged and returned to Colorado to get married. They had decorated jars of Mary’s Mountain Cookies on the tables at the reception, including one with CAM the Ram on it.
In 2016, a faculty position provided an opportunity to return to Fort Collins, where they have lived with their two children ever since.
“I think CSU is a real center of gravity,” Matt said. “This is where things began. Obviously, we probably wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for CSU. It has always felt like home to me. It’s been really nice to be back and to be building a life in this next chapter with kids and grown-up jobs.”
Two decades of love later, they said neither of them has any intention of leaving CSU anytime soon.
“We really like it here,” Jen said. “Like (Matt) said, this feels like home.”
Claudia Pérez & Jesus Calderon
Claudia Pérez and Jesús Calderón met at El Centro’s Welcome Back Barbeque in 2017, when Pérez was a sophomore and Calderón was a junior who had transferred to CSU. Both shared a ride back to the Lory Student Center and bonded over their shared major — communication studies — offering to study together and share notes for classes.
As a La Conexión peer mentor, one day during a slow shift, Calderon walked up to Pérez and jokingly asked if she would marry him, before instead asking her to play something called “36 Questions to Fall In Love” — a game a professor had given him in class.
Calderón asked for Pérez’s number, and a few days later the pair shared an umbrella together walking across The Plaza and took a photo together, with Pérez joking that that photo would be a cute story at their wedding.
Pérez confessed that she loved Calderón, and the next day, Calderón asked Pérez on a first date, which was a comedy show at the LSC. Calderon proposed at the end of 2021, and the couple were married in May 2022.
“I always tell people Jesús actually asked me to marry him twice, once on that day when we played the game, and then for real in 2021,” Perez said. “And that picture (in the rain), we keep that picture, like, in a little frame, and Jesus keeps it in his wallet.”
Nicole Vicente & Millie Queen
Nicole Vicente and Mille Queen, both third-year students, met as first-years when Vicente’s high school friend was Queen’s suitemate. Heading into their second year at CSU, the pair decided to live together, and Vicente said she found herself developing feelings for Queen. The pair became very close friends throughout their first semester as roommates, and Queen was oblivious to Vicente’s feelings for her.
“We would go on day trips together without our other friend,” Vicente said. “She would tell me all this stuff about how beautiful and wonderful I am, and we’d go basically on dates together, essentially, … and this is all (while) we’re living together. We were not dating yet. And then it wasn’t until the second semester of our second year, essentially two years after meeting, a year of me having a crush on her, and a year of living together.”
Queen and Vicente finally confessed their feelings to each other after a drunken night and became a couple a few weeks later.
“What helps about CSU is, even though we’re roommates, there’s enough of, like, a distance and we’re involved in different enough things that we aren’t together all the time,” Vicente said.
Cassie Lyon & Kyle Dahle
Cassie Lyon and Kyle Dahle met through a mutual friend in Lyon’s physics class, who posted a photo of Dahle on his Snapchat story. Dahle was a transfer student to CSU in 2023, and Lyon swiped up on her friend’s Snapchat story to be introduced to Dahle.
Their first date was at a CSU basketball game after they began talking on Snapchat. The couple is approaching their two-year anniversary next month.
“(Dahle)’s friend had said that we would be a good match, but he never did anything about it,” Lyon said. “I did it myself. Who knew if it would have even worked out if his friend matched us up? Yeah, it worked out this way.”
Both Lyon’s parents and grandparents met at CSU. Lyon met Dahle in her last semester of school and was nervous about how to meet people once college had concluded for her. As alumna, Lyon’s family still tailgates at football games, and the couple finds time to work out at the CSU Student Recreation Center and attend basketball games as well, as CSU was an important part of how their relationship began.
“I would work in the LSC, and her club was in the LSC every Wednesday,” Dahle said. “And so I would always try to find an excuse to go up to where her room was and see if I could run into her.”
Peter Fredo & Kali Kirkpatrick
Peter Fredo and Kali Kirkpatrick technically first met before their journey at CSU began, in a large group chat of incoming first-years. Kirkpatrick had made a video on how to introduce dogs to new people for her high school senior capstone project, and she needed views on the video, so she sent it in the group chat.
“I saw that and (I thought) ‘Oh, she’s kind of cute, and maybe it’ll help if I watch the video,’” Fredo said.
“It did help,” Kirkpatrick said, laughing. “Thank you.”
They began hanging out once they were both on campus as first-years. Fredo asked Kirkpatrick to go rock climbing at the Rec Center in November, and they continued hanging out. They began dating a month later and have been together for four years.
“We kind of just hung out and never stopped hanging out,” Kirkpatrick said.
Throughout their relationship, they’ve both shared a love for dogs. Fredo previously raised service dogs, and Kirkpatrick began raising puppies for a nonprofit two years after they started dating.
Reach Allie Seibel, Hannah Parcells, Aubree Miller and Gigi Young at life@collegian.com or on social media @RMCollegian.
