To celebrate February, this is the first story in a series about LHS Alumni who were high school sweethearts.

‘Together forever’ is an almost impossible commitment to make to someone, especially when you begin as high school students. Approximately two percent of all marriages are to  high school sweethearts. LHS Alumni of all ages are among that two percent. On the Linganore High School Alumni Association page on Facebook, dozens of alumni have shared photos celebrating marriage and love.

Tom and Sandra

Liberty Elementary’s lunch schedule can be credited with the beginnings of Tom Martin and Sandra Schaible Martin’s relationship. They met each other in the second grade and struck up an innocent friendship, Tom Martin recalls. Tom was then split up from Sandra until high school. They reconnected in the eleventh grade and began to form a friendship that blossomed into more. Unable to wait any longer to start their life together, the couple married in 1973, the same year they graduated high school.  Their first son Thomas was born in 1974. They welcomed daughter Melany  in 1977.

The couple spent 17 years together, but succumbed to the stress that often leads to a deteriorating marriage. The couple, unfortunately, divorced.

Martin said, “The biggest difficulty in the relationship was definitely getting along.”

The couple spent 14 years divorced, plenty of time to change and move on, but their true love remained unbreakable.

In a report published in  the Chicago Tribune, Nancy Kalish, a professor at California State Sacramento, found only 6% of every 1,000 people marry, divorce, and remarry the same person, but in 2004, this couple remarried. Against all odds, their new-found relationship flourished until Sandra’s passing in 2013.

Do you have a lancer love story? Share it with us!