A Tiffin University graduate said she knew she and her boyfriend would get engaged, but she didn't know it would be immediately after she received a management degree.
Shanice Alexander, a volleyball player, was led to believe she and two teammates were going to receive gifts from a coach after Saturday's ceremony. When a blindfold was removed after Alexander got outside, she saw her boyfriend, Marquis Russell, a sophomore at Ohio Dominican University, kneeling in front of her.
"Shanice Terrae' Alexander, would you be my wife?" he asked her. She said "Yes," he stood up and they embraced as people clapped and cheered.
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PHOTO BY ROB LEDWEDGE
Marquis Russell, a sophomore at Ohio Dominican University, proposes to his girlfriend, Shanice Alexander, after
commencement Saturday afternoon.
Alexander said she thought she might have been about to receive balloons or flowers, and she was confused because she didn't know why she was being taken outside. When the blindfold was removed, she saw the crowd but didn't see Russell until she looked down."I wanted to hit him because he tricked me," she said.
Russell, a sergeant in the U.S. Army's 718th transportation battalion who returned in October from a deployment to Kuwait, said he and Alexander had talked about getting married, and he knew she was going to accept his marriage proposal.
"The whole time during commencement, I was shaking," he said.
Alexander and Russell, Columbus natives, met while working together at a Columbus Walmart and have been dating for more than two years. Russell said he knew she was the one after about a week or two of dating.
"She's smart. She's funny (and) fun to be with. ... She loves my daughter," he said.
Russell said they might get married in two years after he finishes a bachelor's degree and she finishes graduate school.
"(This is) the happiest day of my life so far," Alexander said.
