1978 - A Love Story

By Harika Rao '11 '15  
Published Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Meet Sue Decker '77 and Bill Irwin '78 who started their journey of love and life at the College of Boca Raton.  It was love at first sight for them, at the campus Rathskeller where Bill was the DJ. “It was crazy and all I can remember is that I took one look into his eyes and fell MADLY in love! It was the wildest thing and still is to this very day,” says Sue.

Sue graduated one semester ahead of Bill in the fall of 1977. After an inseparable, amazing semester together it was time to say goodbye as Sue decided to continue her education at Stetson University. They had a tough time seeing each other for the next couple of months in those days of no computers and cell phones. Sue says, “I spent the next 4 months staring out my Stetson dorm room window, praying Bill would appear. He tried, but his car broke down. Then his Yamaha broke down. And Stetson was a good 6-8 hour trip from Boca.”

It was a timeless moment when their paths crossed in 1980. They were too young to confess their love towards each other and had to embark on their career destinations. Bill had to fly to Hong Kong with his father for business and Sue’s conservative parents wanted her to get married. Sue got married in November 1980 and had a daughter, however she ended her marriage in 2000.

In 2005 through sheer luck, while reading the Lynn Magazine, Sue read an article and found Bill again! She tried reaching Bill through email, but she did not hear back from him. Three months later, Bill was back into her life! They rekindled their life and now 35 years later they’re getting married on July13, 2013.

Thanking CBR for giving her the ‘Bill’ of her life, Sue states “Bill has given me the world and he is absolutely THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. And I knew this the exact moment our eyes met at CBR in the Rathskeller. Crazy as that sounds, perhaps even trite or cliche, it couldn't be TRUER.  He's my other half, and my only wish is to make him the happiest man in the universe.”