espite a six-year age difference, Jocelyn Thompson, 20, and Scott Kalberer, 26, have built a relationship together. A bigger struggle they will have to face will be balancing married life with student life.

"We know it will be hard, especially at first," Kalberer says. "But anything that is worth anything is hard. We'll get through it together. We plan on living somewhere close, so we can finish school and be close to our families."

Thompson and Kalberer's romance began in 1997, when they both began working separate games at Geauga Lake Park in Aurora.

Photo by Greg Ruffing

They still noticed each other. Kalberer had a girlfriend at the time, but he still knew he was interested.

"I spotted her," he says. "As soon as I saw her, I knew I wanted to be with her."

Thompson took a little bit longer to come around.

"I was very cautious at first," she says. "He is six years older, so I wanted to be careful and find out exactly what he was after. Then we hung out more, and it drove me crazy to be away from him."

But because Kalberer had a girifriend, the relationship was not moving past friendship. Thompson grew frustrated, wanting more.

"I started dating someone else that summer, almost trying to make him mad," says Thompson, a freshman family studies major. "Then in March of the following year. I wrote him a letter, telling him how I felt. He was single, and so was I. We started talking again."

On June 16, 1998, they went on their first date.

"We went to Sea World," says Kalberer, a junior elementary education major. "And I am not going to say that it was necessarily love at first sight, probably just infatuation, but I knew there was something there."

In March 1999, they went and picked out a ring together.

"I know it wasn't a surprise," he says. "But she is the one who will be wearing it for so long. I wanted her to get exactly what she wanted. I had planned on giving it to her on our one-year anniversary, and I had this whole elaborate, romantic plan set up. But it burned a hole in my pocket. I couldn't wait any more."

Kalberer gave in and presented the ring to her in May.

"He asked my parents first, which meant a lot," Thompson says. "They really liked him before, but that just put them over the top. I think they love him more than me now.

"We were just sitting in his room after work one night, and he asked me," Thompson says.

The two see a bright future. "We get along great," Kalberer says. "I don't do anything major without her, or make any decisions without at least talking to her. We're best friends."