HORN LAKE – Van Alexander and Kim Jordan met at Horn Lake High School, fell in love with each other and eventually got married.
But this isn’t the typical high school sweetheart story. The Alexanders were not students when they met, they were teachers.
Van, principal at Horn Lake Middle School, exchanged wedding vows with his bride, a fourth grade language arts teacher at Walls Elementary, Oct. 21 last year. Both said they are looking forward to their first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife.
“I think it’s going to be even more romantic and special because it will be the first time we can buy husband and wife cards,” Kim Alexander said.
Van said Horn Lake Middle School, which was the high school campus until this year, has sentimental value to both of them.
Van has spent his entire teaching career there so far, the first five years as a teacher and coach, five years as an assistant principal and now as middle school principal. Kim is a graduate of Horn Lake High School.
“It is also the building we first met in,” Van said. “She was doing some course work for Ole Miss, observing teachers, that type of stuff, and we met in these hallways while I was in my first year as assistant principal.”
“Kim knocked my socks off the first time I saw her,” he said. “I would say it was love at first sight for me. For her, I probably had to do a little work.”
According to Kim, though, Van got her attention immediately.
“I remembered his smile. He has such a beautiful smile. A little bit later, I was at the top of the stairs and looked back down at him and saw his eyes. He just has such a tender and giving heart,” she said.
Van credits teacher Vicki Wallace – “She’s always the matchmaker type at school,” he said – for helping bring he and Kim together. Their first date was a school event, a beauty pageant at the high school.
“She (Kim) also had a cousin involved in fast-pitch softball at the time, so I made sure I had some duty responsibilities for softball games,” he said.
Van said he and Kim enjoy talking at the end of each school day.
“The best thing is sharing your day with one another, and how you can really relate,” he said. “Education is a unique profession and unless you’ve worked with children every day, gone through the trials and tribulations and known the reward, you don’t know how important that is.
“She’s probably much more open and a bigger talker than I am, so she will usually tell me about her day. … I know some of her students and she knows some of mine from stories we tell each other,” Van said.
The two were married in a private ceremony in Eureka Springs, Ark., after more than three years dating.
“He proposed to me the day before Easter. We had gone to dinner at Folk’s Folly (a Memphis steak house). I wasn’t suspicious about anything … We went back to his house and I remember I was sitting in the recliner when he got down on one knee, said some very sweet things and asked me,” Kim said.
She said she was “speechless” but didn’t hesitate to say yes.
“He and I both don’t just love each other, we’re both in love with each other. We have and share a deep passionate love. I can truly say he is my valentine,” Kim said.
Terry Britt can be reached at tbritt@desototimes.com or 429-NEWS, ext. 229.