At Alumni Days on Thursday, one couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, along with their 50th class reunion, by recreating their fondest ISU memory: kissing under the Campanile.

Jim and Jane Bowman, alumni from the class of ’58 and residents of Jacksonville, Ill., met in their freshman year at Iowa State at a mixer in the Methodist Church where they both volunteered.

Jane said she went for tall guys because she was tall, which was what initially attracted her to Jim. His “beautiful blue eyes,” she said, made her fall head-over-heels for him in the kitchen of the church.

During their four years at Iowa State, Jim gave Jane his high school class ring, which she wore until he exchanged it for an engagement ring the summer before their senior year. In August 1958, recent graduates Jim and Jane became newlyweds.

As Jim and Jane reminisced over their favorite memories of Iowa State, they said Campaniling topped all the rest.

“I’ve got many favorite memories, but one of them, probably the traditional one, is this man kissed me on a date under the Campanile,” Jane said, referring to Jim with a smile.

When asked about how they decided to Campanile, Jane quickly replied with a laugh.

“It was a case where he hoped and I already decided,” she said.

Jim said they were planning to recreate their favorite memory later that day with a trip to the Campanile. Jim also shared his memory of the freezing nights he endured walking across campus to pick up his date.

“It was in the middle of winter and she lived in Oak Hall and I lived in Friley Hall,” he said. “And instead of saying, ‘I’ll meet you at the library to go study,’ I’d trudge across the frozen campus to pick her up and then we’d walk hand-in-hand with our books, supposedly to study. It was so cold.”

Smiling, Jane said, “What a sacrifice.”

On Thursday, the two were again holding hands as they walked through Central Campus. Both agreed they always have and always will walk hand-in-hand.

“We have to take care of each other,” Jim said while glancing over at Jane.

During their years at Iowa State, Jim and Jane were both involved in many activities that dealt with their majors and interest areas. Jim majored in industry and food technology and Jane was a home economics education major.

Jim was a member of the Advanced ROTC Program and became a 2nd lieutenant in the Artillery. He went on to work on the management team for the Carnation Company, which later became known as Nestle, for 30 years.

Jane, on the other hand, started off as a homemaker and later took more classes to obtain her elementary education certificate, teaching third grade for 10 years.

The couple has four children – three daughters and one son. All of them are grown, and Jim and Jane have five grandchildren, whose ages range from two to 16. The couple said that even though the past 50 years were a lot of work, they are proud of their family and the things they have accomplished in life.

“We’ve had our ups and downs and bumps in the road, as anybody has in 50 years of marriage,” Jane said.

“But we were just talking the other day and we looked at how our kids grew up and what they were doing, and we said ‘We must have done something right.'”