Sweetheart Stories
Michelle Pankow (Ritenour) '14 & Andrew Pankow '14
We met before school started our freshman year. We both moved to the dorms early for sports. Andrew was a football player, and I, a cheerleader. The cliche of “love at first sight” was so real the day we met in Andrew’s dorm room. His first word to me was “wow.” We instantly fell in love, and the rest is history. We were inseparable throughout our 4 years at Cal Lu. I was his biggest fan, and cheered him on at every game, even though the first rule of being a cheerleader was “never date a football player.” Oops. We took as many classes as we could and spent all our free time together. Our love for each other was real, raw, easy, and grew exponentially each and every day. We graduated in 2014, and were engaged in 2015. We had a dream wedding in 2016, filled with our Cal Lu family. In 2018, we welcomed our daughter, Ella, and in 2020, we welcomed our son, Jameson. We love bringing our kids to campus to show them where it all began. Andrew and I are so thankful for our time at Cal Lu and for bringing us together.