RIGHT TIME RIGHT PLACE : Chess was not her game but she played for a mate
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Northwest_Profiles/224746/
FAYETTEVILLE — Suzanne McCray and Bob Cochran met while hanging around in the mail room at the University of Arkansas’ Kimpel Hall. She was a graduate assistant in the English department and he was an English professor when a colleague introduced them in 1979.
A relationship developed over regular chess matches at Brough Commons, across the street from Kimpel. Suzanne admits she was not the best player.
“I should have understood he really liked me because I was very bad at chess, but he played anyway,” she says.
After a year of losing at chess, Suzanne decided it was too humiliating to continue. Bob responded by inviting her to try another activity. The couple moved outdoors to spend time together. They took hikes on trails at Mount Magazine State Park. Bob was a runner, but he slowed to keep Suzanne’s pace, he says.
Their first big date was farther than a quick hike. Bob took Suzanne to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue, both in Kansas City, Mo. Bob loved Arthur Bryant’s and wanted her to experience it. The date was a balance of fine art and not so fine dining.
Now almost 30 years later, they order Arthur Bryant’s barbecue sauce by the case and visit the restaurant with their family to reminisce about their first date.
Bob says he was physically attracted to Suzanne, but more than that, he was attracted to her maternal instinct. He considered her well-grounded and believes they got together because they shared a vision of rearing a family.
“I knew from a year of playing chess that she would be the wonderful center of a family,” he says.
They married Sept. 2, 1982, in Woody Bassett’s law office in Fayetteville. They were Bassett’s first wedding ceremony. The congregation of six included their children Bob and Shannon, now 36 and 31. Their other children are Masie, 24; Jesse, 21; and Taylor, 16.
The older Bob still teaches in the English department. Suzanne is the associate dean of the honors college and directs the office of postgraduate fellowship.
They still love to hike, but they also enjoy going to concerts and discussing books they’ve both read. They do their best to keep up with the activities and aspects of the lives of their children, most of whom have scattered to the West and East coasts. They enjoy traveling to see their children and overseas.
In 1985, Bob took Suzanne and their children with him on a year-long J. William Fulbright lectureship in Romania. They met wonderful people, ate interesting foods and tried without much success to learn Hungarian folk dancing together, she says.
“That was probably the biggest challenge of our marriage,” she says.
Suzanne and the children had to leave Romania early because of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant incident in 1986.
Bob told her early in their relationship that if she stayed with him “she would do bizarre and interesting things.”
He has been true to his word so far.
“I have not ever been bored,” she says. If you have an intriguing how-we-met story or know someone who does, please e-mail Cyd King at
cking@arkansasonline. com