Centralight

ietta McDonald Howard and Mar s during the 1920 attended CMU THE MCDONALDS A squeaky clean proposal When Robert McDonald, ���60 M.A. ���71, graduated from CMU, he was smack in the middle of a family legacy. He proudly graduated alongside his mother, Marietta, who finished her bachelor���s degree at the same time he did. McDonald���s parents, Howard and Marietta, met at Central in the 1920s, both studying to be teachers and earning their two-year teaching certificates. Decades later, their kids, Robert and Ellen, went to CMU in the mid-1950s. After a two-year leave to serve in the Army, Robert earned his degree in secondary education and then his master���s in secondary administration, eventually becoming principal at Tawas Area Schools. He and wife, Carolyn, have four kids. Their second daughter, Kathi (McDonald) Mulder, ���81, continued the McDonald/CMU love story. Kathi met Craig Mulder, ���78, at CMU in the fall of 1980. Their CMU romance was filled with long walks on campus, cross-country skiing, bike rides to Island Park, lunches at Stan���s. By January, Craig proposed. ���It wasn���t the most romantic proposal,��� Kathi, a Traverse City midwife, recalls with a laugh. ���We were doing laundry on a Sunday night.��� Carolyn and Ro bert McDonald, ���6 Somewhere between the wash and spin cycles, Craig blurted out his proposal. Kathi was pretty sure she���d say yes ��� but made him wait a week. An agonizing week, Craig is quick to add. 0 M.A. ���71 They married on Aug. 18, 1982, on grandparents��� Howard and Marietta���s 50th anniversary. Now Kathi and Craig have three daughters and their youngest, Hannah, is a junior at Central. ���We go back deep there,��� says Robert, who often makes his way back to Central. ���It was sort of a given we���d all go there.��� Kathi (McD onald) Mu lder, ���81, a nd Craig M ulder, ���78 centralight spring ���13 11

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