Sometimes you never know when love will strike. It just might be in your meteorology lecture.

That was the case for lovebirds Jen Cooper and Tony Gaul during Cooper’s Meteorology 206 class in Lush Auditorium Monday. Gaul surprised his girlfriend of two months by asking her to marry him via a class slide presentation at the end of the period.

Shocked but happy, Cooper accepted the proposal immediately, Gaul said.

“She literally jumped over the row into my arms,” he said. “It was the greatest feeling I have ever had. I wanted to do the ‘down on the knee’ thing, but I didn’t quite get there.”

Gaul said proposing in class has always been an idea he’s considered.

“I’ve actually been thinking that when it came time for me to propose to someone, I’d like to do it in a classroom, and I had the opportunity with Jen, so I did it,” he said. “It just seemed like a perfect fit.”

Gaul had been meeting Cooper outside Kildee Hall at the bus every day after her class, so Meteorology 206 seemed to be the logical place to pop the question, Gaul said.

“I talked to her professor on Friday morning and said, ‘I want to do this in your class,’ and he said it was OK with him,” he said.

Elwynn Taylor, Cooper’s professor, said he was very supportive of the quirky proposal.

“Something like that seemed appropriate to me; I’m in favor of marriage,” he said. “It was innovative, and a bit extreme, but appropriate.”

Gaul said he talked with Taylor, professor of agronomy, about the specifics of the proposal and thought about it over the weekend before finalizing it Monday morning.

In the end, Taylor and Gaul agreed to work it into Taylor’s lecture.

“I was discussing, as the period ended, the probability of rainfall and other weather events,” Taylor said, “and then I placed a slide on the screen inquiring about the probability of a proposal in this class being accepted today.”

Taylor said he then put up a slide with a multiple-choice question on it reading, “What is the chance that Jen will say yes…,” followed by choices, “100 percent, 75 percent, 50 percent, and ‘no way.'”

He then followed it with a slide reading, “if Tony Gaul proposes marriage in this class right now? All students who vote for 100 percent, please clap.”

“There was considerable applause after that,” Taylor said. “Then when she accepted, there was extreme applause.”

Gaul said he then walked over to Cooper and placed the engagement ring on her finger.

Despite dating Cooper for only two months, Gaul is sure she’s the right woman for him.

“I can look at her even when she’s not there and still smile,” he said. “I can honestly say I have never felt like that about anyone before.”

Taylor said it was one of his most unusual classes ever.

“I’ve been teaching at ISU for 21 years, and this is definitely my first proposal,” he said.