It was the fall of 1948. Tennessee Wesleyan College (now University) was filled with the hopeful buzz of energy for the new academic year. Possibility was everywhere – young minds preparing for their futures, veterans returning home, friendships forming under the shade of the campus’s beautiful trees. It was in this very season of possibility that two souls found each other.

     Alma Martin was deeply woven into the very fabric of Tennessee Wesleyan. She was the daughter of Methodist minister W.C. Martin and the niece of TWC Dean and President James Lindsey Robb. To Alma, Tennessee Wesleyan was never just a school. The campus was like a home, reminding her of the family legacy of faith she grew up in. Alma carried both grace and strength in equal measures.

      Louis Freyre arrived with a very different story. He was a World War II veteran from New York City, attending college on the GI Bill. Where Alma’s life had been steeped in the Southern tradition of Tennessee, Louis brought the resilience of a soldier, ready to build a new life for himself. He was pursuing a degree in civil engineering at Georgia Tech, full of blueprints and plans for what he dreamed of building. Perhaps, though, the most important foundation Louis would ever lay was the one he began with Alma.

       Their courtship lasted two years, stretched across distance and longing. Alma completed her degree from TWC in 1949, while Louis continued his studies in Georgia. The miles between Alma and Louis were heart-rending.

        In 1950, unable to bear the distance any longer, Alma and Louis were married at Forst Avenue Methodist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee. TWC Chaplain Reverend George Naff officiated, a fitting tribute to the campus where their love had first bloomed. In a wedding ceremony filled with individuals from their TWC days, Alma and Louis promised “forever” to each other.

        And forever, it seems, is exactly what they meant.

         Together, the pair built a life rich with faith, family, and adventure. They were blessed with two sons and two daughters, raising their family in Tennessee with the same devotion that marked their courtship. Over the years, Alma’s and Louis’s love carried them far beyond their college beginning. They traveled to places such as Venezuela and Italy, making new memories together all across the globe.

         Today, Alma and Louis reside at Arbor Terrace in Knoxville, TN, and are faithful members of Church Street United Methodist Church, soundly rooted in the faith that shaped their beginning.

         It feels poetic that in 1948, their classmates elected Alma and Louis TWC King and Queen of Hearts. Even then, it seems everyone could see the love story that was truly unfolding.

        On September 1, 2025, Alma and Louis celebrated seventy-five years of marriage. Seventy-five years of choosing one another through distance and decades, through children and travels, and through extraordinary and ordinary moments.

        When the Tennessee Wesleyan student body crowned Alma and Louis King and Queen of Hearts, they certainly made the right choice.

        Many love stories begin on campus, but only the rare ones last a lifetime.