When Katherine Priore ’07 and Dan Hogan ’08 met through mutual friends—Brenda Houy ’07 and Kevin Shoemaker—they had no idea their friendship would become a lifelong love affair.
Both College of Business students, with Katherine pursing international business and Dan a marketing major, the two ran into each other outside of classes.
“I really liked him and thought he was cute, so I would plan my exiting strategies from class around times that I knew I would see him,” Priore said.
It didn’t take long before the couple fell in love. Their time together at Illinois State included attending shows at the Normal Theater, seeing concerts at the U.S. Cellular Coliseum, and dates at the Bone Student Center’s Bowling and Billiards Center.
Priore graduated a year before Hogan and moved to Chicago, yet she continued to live life like a Redbird. She visited Dan at Illinois State every other weekend until he graduated.
“I actually got to extend my college experience,” she said. “So although a long distance relationship wasn’t the easiest thing to do, it was kind of fun to have an extra year of coming back to ISU.”
The couple married in January of this year and now reside in Chicago. She is a business analysis manager with Avalon Risk Management, while he works as an account manager for CDW Corporation. They make it a point to stay connected to the campus where they fell in love.
“Dan’s family still lives in Bloomington, so we do travel back quite a lot,” Priore said. “We are huge fans of Redbird basketball. We go to games at ISU and whenever the Redbirds are in Chicago, we go to those games as well.”
Their next ISU adventure will be traveling to cheer the men’s basketball team in the 2014 U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam tournament this month, adding another chapter to their ISU love story.
