Tina (Fabley) ’79 and Mark Chase ’78 took a trip to Oahu, Hawaii, this year to mark their 40th wedding anniversary and to celebrate a romance that began on Illinois State’s campus.
Appears InThe Chases tied the knot on August 13, 1977, the summer before his senior and her junior year. He majored in business administration and minored in economics, and she was an elementary education student. They met during Tina’s freshman year. Two of her roommates were dating a pair of Mark’s housemates in Watterson Towers.
Mark remembers being attracted to the cute blonde he passed on the Quad. “I had a head of hair that I don’t have anymore,” he said. “We just clicked.”
They bonded over Redbird sports. The couple was in Horton Field House the day the Redbirds upset top 5-ranked UNLV, and traveled to Indiana State to watch ISU play Larry Bird’s Sycamores.
Date nights often consisted of a movie at Capen Auditorium followed by dinner at Avanti’s. “It was a cheap date,” Mark said. “The whole thing was like five bucks.”
In 1976 Mark proposed to Tina on the Quad after a Redbird football game. They held an impromptu engagement party that night in Watterson Towers.
The couple returned to campus last summer to catch up with some college friends. “We have fond memories of ISU,” Tina said.
Mark retired in 2016 after 38 years with State Farm Insurance Company. He worked in Illinois, Oregon, Illinois again and finally in California, where the couple now resides. Tina served in public and private elementary schools during her career. “As the travelling spouse, I always taught,” she said.
They have three children—Nicholas, Scott, and Stacy—and five grandchildren, with another one on the way this fall.
