{"id":416,"date":"2018-08-10T15:17:59","date_gmt":"2018-08-10T15:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcsu.wpengine.com\/alumni\/?page_id=416"},"modified":"2018-08-10T15:20:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T15:20:10","slug":"mead","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/sweethearts-stories\/mead\/","title":{"rendered":"Al and Joan Mead – Made for Each Other"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/i>(as featured in the Fall 2008 AlumniNews)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

By Connie Conway<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Al \u201967, \u201969 and Joan \u201968 Mead tell a great story about how they met as undergraduates at WestConn. \u201cSome buddies and I were having a silly conversation in the coffee shop at the old Student Union,\u201d remembers Danbury-born-and-raised Al. \u201cOne fellow said something was \u2018irrevelent.\u2019 At the next table, Joan\u2014ever the English education major\u2014just put her foot down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI told him the word was \u2018irrelevant\u2019,\u201d says Joan, who originally hailed from Pennsylvania. \u201cI had to correct a mistake like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMeantime, I\u2019m looking at her attractive face,\u201d Al recalls with a twinkle. \u201cAnd thinking, hmmm, here\u2019s an interesting woman.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Joan laughs, protesting it was her roommate who \u201cconvinced me to go out with him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were married a year later, between semesters,\u201d Al says.<\/p>\n

In college and throughout life, it\u2019s clear the Meads have always been thoroughly involved people. As an undergraduate, Al, a secondary-education\/mathematics major who interrupted college with a four-year stint in the Air Force, managed the basketball team. Joan sang in class productions that were regularly presented to the school at large.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I love to tell about the first time I actually saw Al, before we\u2019d ever met,\u201d Joan says. \u201cHe was up on a ladder, trying to fix a basketball net. He told someone to toss him a ball, which they did\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I missed it!\u201d Al chuckles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich left me with quite an impression,\u201d concludes his wife of 44 years.<\/p>\n

The couple pursued careers that engaged them fully. Al was an eighth-grade math teacher for 29 years in Carmel, N.Y., while Joan was a full-time homemaker who would later go on to other career interests as her children Amanda, now 43, and Joseph, 42 grew.<\/p>\n

\u201cI substitute-taught and was a proofreader for the News-Times,\u201d she says. \u201cThen for a few years I was a partner in a restaurant business. Doing different things appealed to me. I even managed Union Carbide\u2019s audio-visual department until they moved. After that, I was an editor until I retired.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two \u201cretired\u201d Meads seem anything but that. Still strongly connected to their alma mater, they attend Homecoming and football games, and are dedicated supporters of the WCSU Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently I\u2019m on WestConn\u2019s Annual Golf Tournament committee,\u201d explains Al. \u201cAnd I get to as many Colonials basketball games as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

WestConn has grown so much since they were students, notes Joan. \u201cWe\u2019re delighted that our daughterin-law, Laura, is enrolled in WestConn\u2019s new doctoral program in educational leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandparents to three who live just down the road, the Meads also keep busy with civic concerns. Al serves as chairman of the Richter Park Authority and Joan is currently on Danbury\u2019s Charter Revision Commission.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(as featured in the Fall 2008 AlumniNews) By Connie Conway Al \u201967, \u201969 and Joan \u201968 Mead tell a great story about how they met as undergraduates at WestConn. \u201cSome buddies and I were having a silly conversation in the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":395,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-416","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/416\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}