Valentine's Day 2026

Roses are red. Violets are blue. These alumni loves are forever true.

Rose-Hulman students and alumni often speak fondly about meeting "their people" on campus, building a lifelong community of individuals who reflect their own passion for STEM and for impacting their communities. Some meet their match while they are students, with lab partners becoming life partners and floormates becoming soulmates long after graduation.

This Valentine's Day, we celebrate a few of our alumni couples who have found their forever Rosie and their stories together— magical moments straight out of a fairytale.

  • Trey and Karen (Folz) Wurtz
  • Cole and Sydney (Black) Supp
  • Matthew and Matt (Mercer) Welmers
  • Drew and Mackenzie (Beasley) Gearhart
  • Rufus and Rachel (Romines) Cochran

Trey and Karen (Folz) Wurtz

Once upon a time, in the lobby of Baur-Sames-Bogart (BSB) Hall, a community of new students craving companionship found themselves with free time between their Orientation events, a moment that would become the prologue to Trey and Karen (Folz) Wurtz's love story.

Their little group of friends became inseparable, bonding over Friday movie nights, intense games of Ping Pong, or wings at Chauncey's.

As the group of friends grew closer, Trey and Karen started dating in January 2018 and have been together ever since.

Karen and Trey finished their bachelor's degrees in 2021 — Trey in civil engineering, Karen in chemical engineering and biochemistry and molecular biology with a minor in Spanish — and Trey completed a master's degree in civil engineering in 2022.

Throughout their time at Rose-Hulman, some of their favorite memories included cheering during the other's basketball games or track meets. For most of Trey's final basketball season, though, fans were not allowed in the stands at most games due to ongoing restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Trey says, Cupid was watching out for him because fans were finally allowed to attend the Senior Night game. Karen walked with Trey's family for his Senior Night recognition, and he thought that that moment, surrounded by people they loved at the place they loved, was the perfect moment to propose.

Karen and Trey were married on September 23, 2023. Karen, a validation engineer at Cook Polymer Technology, and Trey, a project manager at Midwest Design Group, currently live happily ever after in Indianapolis with their Great Dane, Stanley.

Cole and Sydney (Black) Supp

Once upon a time, in a mechanical engineering course, two study partners blossomed into life partners. 

Cole and Sydney (Black) Supp spent many late nights working on homework together, beginning with studying for a class taught by Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Calvin Lui, PhD, and planning for their roles as sophomore advisors — Cole in Speed, and Sydney in Blumberg.

Since they were both mechanical engineering majors, Cole and Sydney were fortunate to take many of the same classes at the same time and learn from each other, spending their evenings in empty classrooms across campus. When they needed a break, they spent quality time together walking around campus or heading down Wabash Avenue for a late-night burrito at Chava's before returning to their work, sometimes studying in the academic buildings until classes began the next day.

After Cole asked Sydney on a date, the pair spent many of their breaks in the academic schedule traveling together and with friends across the country, including Chicago, Tennessee, Maine, Washington, D.C., Minnesota, Florida, and Seattle. Since graduating in 2019, the couple has continued to travel and has added a few international stamps to their passports, including trips to meet Rose-Hulman friends in Scotland, Japan, and India.

When Cole and Sydney got married in July 2023, they knew there was only one person they wanted to officiate their wedding: Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Erik Hayes (BSME, 1997; MSME, 2001).

"He and his wife and two kids — Mel, Ryland, and Ronan — have been great friends and mentors to us both, and we are so grateful he agreed to marry us!" Cole and Sydney said. "We are so lucky that we met at Rose, and we are very grateful for all the people we met during our college experience who have made an impact on our life and continue to support us."

Several of those people were also members of the Supps' wedding party and continue to travel with the couple to this day. Now, Cole is a senior aero performance engineer and Sydney is a principal process engineer, both in the aerospace industry. They live happily ever after in Dayton, Ohio, with their dog, Azula.

Matthew and Matt (Mercer) Welmers

Once upon a time, in 1992, the name "Matthew" was given to 37,733 babies. Eighteen years later, 14 of those babies moved into the third floor of Speed Hall. Two of those 14 Matthews fell in love.

Matthew "Chuck" Welmers and Matt (Mercer) Welmers bonded throughout their first year at Rose-Hulman, first over their shared first name and eventually over a nostalgic evening binge-watching "Veggie Tales." Matthew quickly fell for Matt and his open nature.

Though they performed a fake wedding for a Shakespearean literature course during their senior year of college, Matt and Matthew did not date until after they had both graduated from Rose-Hulman in 2014 — Matt with degrees in computer science, software engineering, and math, and Mathew with a bachelor's degree in chemistry.  Matt and Matthew followed separate paths after graduation, with Matthew completing a master's degree in chemistry at Rose-Hulman and Matt moving home to Oxford, Ohio.

Though they stayed in contact after college, it was not until August 2019 that Matthew asked Matt to meet up for dinner, vowing not to watch Matt's life developments through his Facebook feed. Matt proposed to Matthew on Leap Day 2020, and they returned to campus in October 2022 for a different wedding — a real one. Matt and Matthew were married in the White Chapel, with a reception in the Mussallem Union's Vonderschmitt Café.

Several alumni joined them for wedding party photos on the dock of Speed Lake, including officiant Jonathan Soulsby (ME, 2016), best man Adan Bruner (CHE, 2013), Lauren (McClellan) Cunningham (CHE, 2017), and Charlie Fenoglio (SE, 2018).

As students, some of Matt and Matthew's favorite memories had been chatting together on the swing outside of Speed Hall, and they celebrated the new chapter in their lives together on the very swing where their story began.

Today, Matt is an application engineer for Capital One and Matthew is an analytical chemist for INX International Ink Company. Together, they live happily ever after in West Chicago, Illinois, with Shadow, a black cat that adopted them in 2021.

Drew and Mackenzie (Beasley) Gearhart

Once upon a time, on the back of a motorcycle zooming around Terre Haute, a pair of friends felt their relationship deepen into something more.

Drew and Mackenzie (Beasley) Gearhart met their first year at Rose-Hulman and shared many mutual friends, but they did not spend much time one-on-one until October, 2020.  With many events still restricted due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Drew and Mackenzie found themselves watching shows together in Lakeside Hall or taking Drew's motorcycle for rides around town.

They dated throughout their junior and senior years, graduating together in 2022. Mackenzie studied mechanical engineering, while Drew pursued chemical engineering.

As alumni, they returned to homecoming in 2023 to celebrate memories and build new stories. Drew proposed at the bonfire — a moment so poignant and candid that their photos came out blurry because their friend didn't have enough time to react.

The photos capture the emotions of the night, which they both describe as the best day of their lives prior to their wedding day — September 27, 2025.

Over half of their wedding party was fellow Rose-Hulman alumni, including officiant Tatiana Andrade (CHE, 2023), maids of honor Lara Peters (CHE, 2022) and Ashley Parker (BE, 2024), and groomsmen Griffin Altmix (ME, 2022), Evan Baker (ME, 2022), Nicholas Barr (ME, 2022), and Andrew White (CS, 2021).

"We're so grateful to Rose not only for bringing us together, but also for giving us so many incredible lifelong friends," Drew and Mackenzie said. "Many of them shaped our college experience in many ways by being a combination of classmate, roommate, fellow ROTC cadet, sorority sister, or fraternity brother. They've become family and an integral part of who we are."

Drew is now a process engineer at Linde Advanced Material Technologies, and Makenzie is an industrial engineer for Endress+Hauser. They live happily ever after in the greater Indianapolis area.

Rufus and Rachel (Romines) Cochran

Once upon a time, in Percopo Hall, the power of music — or rather, the volume of it — brought soulmates together.

Rufus Cochran III and his sophomore suitemates converted their room into a movie theater, with lofted seating, a large screen TV, and a very loud stereo system. Unfortunately — or, perhaps, fortunately — for Rachel (Romines) Cochran, fate had placed this boisterous gathering spot directly above her room. The resident assistant mentioned to Rufus that the introverted girl in the room beneath his had filed some noise complaints. Rufus went downstairs to apologize, which led to him and Rachel talking all night. They started dating a couple of days later.

(Rufus claims they had met in German class that year, but Rachel says they met on the first night of move-in the year before. A group of girls from Rachel's floor visited Baur-Sames-Bogart Hall because a group of people, including Rufus, were building a tower from the empty moving boxes. Unimpressed, Rachel had returned to her room).

They both graduated from Rose-Hulman in 2011. Rufus studied computer engineering with a concentration in robotics and a minor in German, and Rachel studied electrical engineering with a minor in German. Their favorite Rose-Hulman memory is traveling to South Korea together to present their senior design projects at the Seoul National University of Technology and visiting with classmates who had started graduate school in Japan.

"Having the opportunity to travel the world with the coolest person you know, making lifelong memories (waiting while your partner is detained in international customs because they thought they could just put a robot controller in their carry-on and no one would ask questions), and sharing a once in a lifetime experience was something we will always cherish from Rose-Hulman," Rufus and Rachel said.

They added, "You never know when you are going to find that special person. Be yourself — file noise complaints, or be the loud neighbor…You never know who the person on the other side of that door is until you spend the time to get to know them."

Rufus and Rachel co-founded a nonprofit, Indiana Sciences, to spread public awareness of science in everyday life in Indiana, as well as the FIRST Robotics Competition team 6721, Trailblazer Robotics, to mentor the next generation of STEM leaders.

Rufus is a data scientist at Roche Diagnostics, and Rachel is a senior project engineer at Applied Engineering, Inc. They live happily ever after in Indianapolis.