Bryan: “So we had a mutual friend from New Mexico where Leigh Anne is from. Her name is Carolyn who was my age (I’m two years older than Leigh Anne). So when Leigh Anne came to campus, Carolyn said, ‘I have this guy you need to meet.’ So Carolyn showed Leigh Anne this one picture of me from the yearbook. It was a photo taken of me on a class trip to the Heifer Project where I was milking a goat.
Leigh Anne: “So after I saw the picture, I asked Carolyn, ‘Seriously is that him?’ And of course it was. So he called me and said, ‘My name is Bryan McKinney and you don’t know me from Adam but I really trust Carolyn Brooks. You wanna go out?'”
Bryan: “When I picked her up she was already telling me how many things she needed to do that night so that if it was a bad experience she had an excuse. After the concert, I said, ‘Do you wanna go to Sonic or do you need to go back and do those 400 things you told me you had to do?’ It took her about five minutes to decide. That was the moment where we were either finished or maybe we would continue. Because if she said she needed to study that was message that she didn’t like me. But after five minutes of debate and inner turmoil she said, ‘Okay, we can go to Sonic. But I really need to be back soon cause I have a bunch to do.’
Leigh Anne: “I was a freshman, I didn’t know that he was a big deal on campus.”
Bryan McKinney, Dean of the Hickingbotham School of Business
Leigh Anne McKinney, Coordinator of Public School Initiatives
Photo By: Marissa Pilcher
