In a press release earlier today, eHarmony announced the winners of their 2007 Couple of Year contest. From 25,000 submissions, they chose a couple from each state (e.g., “Couple of the Year Kentucky“) and then picked one among them.
The winner, John and Mindy Pease of Hawaii, won a vacation to Orlando, Florida. (Was the Florida winner glad they didn’t win?) The 50 couples each received an engraved award.
The press release lacked details about these people (and you know how much we tear apart eHarmony press releases here), so I googled some of these couples and found out more about four of them:
From Kailua, Hawaii: John and Mindy Pease
The Peases were married on 30 June 2007. Here’s a clip from their website: Pease and Happiness: The Life and Times of John and Mindy Pease, which also has wedding, honeymoon and vacation photos:
Greetings Everyone!
Many of you know that John and I met through eHarmony. I never thought I’d find the man of my dreams here, but I did. I think every relationship has a “story”.. Our “story” is probably unlike any other story. Girl is matched, girl starts writing to guy in prison… (I can actually say this because when John and I were first introduced, he was stationed at the Abu Ghrib Prison in Iraq.) Couple starts to fall in love though they are thousands of miles apart, couple meets in person, couple gets married and move to Hawaii! What a story… Well, the people at eHarmony thought our “story” was great and they have chosen our story as the 2007 eHarmony Success Story of the Year! Out of all the matches that happened in 2007, our story was the top one. We got the call from eHarmony today. A few weeks back they told us we were a “finalist” in the State of Hawaii Success Story. They would choose a state finalist from all 50 states, then from those 50 winners they would choose a grand prize winner.
When John and I got home from a walk today, I had a message on my phone to call them. So I did. Becky from eHarmony told me that we were the winning story for the State of Hawaii. I wanted to ask about the “overall” contest and grand prize, but I thought that would seem to “pushy”. Grateful that we won the state of Hawaii, I thanked her. Then……. she said, “I also want to let you know that your story is also the GRAND PRIZE story and winner of the entire contest” . Only John could tell you what my face looked like at that time. I was so giddy and happy! I probably had a grin from ear to ear. So, what do we get for winning??? An all expense-paid vacation to Orlando, Florida. Including airfare, hotel, rental car and even Disney Park passes. We are so excited! John loves Disney World and I’ve never been, but always wanted to go. They are mailing us the information for the trip now. Oh… and we get a “trophy” for winning too… When the trophy comes in, I’ll have to take a picture of it and put it on our blog.
Read the rest of her post, dated 10 January 2008
From Lapwai, Idaho: Travis Wilkerson and Farren Penny
These two were featured in an article of the Idaho Stateman:
Farren Penney, 30, of Lapwai, met her fiance, Travis Wilkerson, 31, on eHarmony.
“I’m from the Nez Perce Reservation,” Penney said. “You’re pretty much related to everybody there, and I was having a hard time meeting people so I decided, ‘Well, I’m just going to try this.”
Penney said she was scared to try online dating at first, “but eHarmony is more marriage-centered, focused more on the long-term rather than the weekend date.”
After an extensive questionnaire – “there were almost 500 questions,” she said, with a chuckle – Penney decided to jump into the world of online dating in mid-February 2006.
From Cedar City, Utah: Joanna “Jae” and Brady Price
Jae and Brady gave birth to these triplets on 27 September 2007.
From Colchester, Vermont: Chad Ahern and Amy Chmielewski
Amy’s parents announced their engagement on 19 November 2006 and a planned wedding on 26 July 2007.
That’s all Google’s got. The four cities are small, so these people won’t be hard to trace.
See stories of other couples in our Couples category.
Know an eHarmony success story? Drop us a line and we’ll feature them.
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