Jeff Garner ‘99 and Karla Robinson Garner ‘00 first met in the Washington Hall suites at a beer pong tournament. Their official first date was lunch at Max & Erma’s at The Pointe at North Fayette. Jeff, a sport management major, and Karla, an education major, remember going to dances in John Jay and having fun on Super Saturday. “At the time, we did not have cell phones or social media as a form of entertainment,” Karla remembers. “So the fun was just hanging out in the suites, or taking a cab Downtown,” says Karla. There was football too — Karla watched from the stands as Jeff played on a team that won NEC and ECAC titles.

Jeff is assistant athletic director for ticketing sales and service at Penn State, and was inducted into RMU’s Sport Management Hall of Fame at the Sport Management Conference this fall.Garner-Couple-Family Karla teaches Spanish and French at Bishop Guilfoyle Catholic High School in Altoona. The couple live in Hollidaysburg and have two children, Lola, 9, and Landon, 6. They are also hosting a student from Tokyo who is a senior at Bishop Guilfoyle.

The two enjoy coming back for Homecoming and sporting events. Karla says she loves the friendly atmosphere at RMU, and she recalls that even the parking lot people knew her by name. “When she says the parking lot people knew her,” Jeff jokes, “the people who wrote the tickets knew her.”