After a Few Hitches, They Marry

--They met in the late 1920s and fell in love at first sight, a slim man in fancy clothes and the prettiest girl he ever saw--and so they married, 58 years later, last Dec. 1. Fate separated Edna Bowyer and Dave Guthrie after their chance meeting before the Great Depression. Edna moved away from Charleston, W.Va., with her family. Dave headed west, married and was divorced soon after. Dave returned to West Virginia in the late 1930s, couldn’t find Edna and got married a second time. This marriage lasted 43 years, until his wife died. Edna, meanwhile, had run away from home when she was 16 and married a coal miner. She returned to Charleston a few years later, a widow with two children. “I was working in a restaurant looking for Dave,” she said. She didn’t find him and eventually married a salesman. They moved to Pittsburgh, where he died in the early ‘50s, and “I lived with my granddaughter and raised my great-grandchildren.” Dave kept looking, and last October he found Edna, now 78 and blinded by glaucoma. “We got married Dec. 1,” she said with a smile. Both vividly remember their first meeting, and they never fell out of love. Dave turns 80 on Friday. “She’s as pretty today as she was the day I met her,” Dave said, “and our love is as strong.”

--As thousands of spectators lined the Cary Quad and cheered, more than 100 students shed their clothes and ran around the courtyard at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., around midnight despite a ban on the annual “Nude Olympics.” Purdue President Steven Beering had banned the event, calling it a health hazard; last year’s race was held in extreme cold. The temperature this year was a mild 38 degrees with the wind chill factor in the teens. Two students were arrested, and scores may risk probation or expulsion. “I don’t care what Beering says,” said a runner who identified himself as Andy Banta, 20. “I ran to have some fun.”

--Joshua Poore’s mother said her son may squeal in court, but he certainly won’t talk. “I was surprised when the subpoena came in the mail. I mean, what can a 6-month-old baby tell anybody?” Pamela Poore asked. She too was subpoenaed to appear in Toledo, Ohio, before Judge Charles Abood next Thursday in a drunk driving case in which she suffered a minor injury. Joshua wasn’t hurt. Abood said he expects that Joshua will be dismissed as a witness as soon as the prosecutor calls him. Joshua wouldn’t be much help, anyway, Poore said. He can’t do anything “except roll over and cry. He smiles a lot and he yells a lot, but that’s about it.”