The Rampage Spring 2019

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bc Rampage.com

A Bluefield College

Love Story by Kaleigh Compton Communication • 2020

B luefield College is a community where students can find their calling, grow as individuals, make memories, and develop new friends. It is also a place where students can find love. Just ask BC students Caden Minnix and Rhyan Bailey, who did just that almost two years ago when they first met on campus in the Student Activities Center (SAC). Bailey recalls how the couple first met. She says she saw Minnix in the SAC and initially noticed him because she thought he resembled her faculty advisor. Little did she know Minnix was the son of her advi- sor, Dr. Doug Minnix, professor and chair of the Department of Exercise Science. “We began talking and quickly real- ized we had a lot in common,” Bailey said. “We both liked the sciences and had an interest in healthcare.”

The younger Minnix said he was used to people coming up to him asking if he was related to Dr. Minnix, which is how Bailey first approached him, but what he didn’t know is that this person would later become his fiancée and eventually his wife.

Later at the Homecoming Dance, Bailey and Minnix were recognized for their special moment as they danced to “Perfect,” a romantic ballad written by Ed Sheeran and dedicated by dance organizers to the newly engaged couple. They will be getting married inside Harman Chapel on July 13, 2019.

“I technically asked him out first,” Bailey said. “He didn’t know it was a date at first, but he later got the hint and officially asked me out.” Bailey and Minnix instantly became friends. Wherever she would go, he would follow. They went to dinners together at local restaurants, watched theatre performances together in Harman Chapel, and studied for exams together in classes they shared.

“He has always been so sweet to help me if there is anything I did not understand in class,” Bailey said. “Most of our rela- tionship has revolved around our experiences at Bluefield College.” The couple got engaged during BC’s Homecoming Weekend 2018. As they did the year before, they had planned to get their photos taken during the Homecoming Dance. This time around, Minnix had additional plans. Just outside the picturesque Harman Chapel, Minnix got down on one knee and asked Bailey for her hand in marriage. “I was so surprised,” she said. “I knew it would happen eventually, because we had talked about our future together. I had no idea it would happen before the Homecoming Dance. It was really special to me that he decided to propose in the way he did because Bluefield was the place that brought us together.”

Both say they are excited for their wed- ding day and to start their

lives together as a married couple. Bailey said she knows they will be honeymooning this summer in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, but the rest of the planning will be up to Minnix. Both will be starting graduate school this fall at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine in Lewisburg, West Virginia. When asked what they are most excited about for their new chapter in life, Minnix replied “her being the first person I see in the morning and at night.”

Harman Chapel Illustration © Ben Ayers