RIPLEY - A group of Michigan Technological University students had their first date with each other with the vista on Mont Ripley as a backdrop.
If the dates went well, all the better. And if they went badly, at least they were over quickly.
The students were part of the inaugural speed-dating session at Mont Ripley, held Saturday afternoon.
The event was part of a romance-themed weekend which also included a Friday night advice session from the "Dating Doctor," speaker David Coleman, said organizers Candice Holt and Amanda Norris, part of the Memorial Union Building board.
"It's Sweetest Day today, so we're kind of putting it all together for a romantic weekend," Holt said.
Thirty-three people came out to the event. But as Holt noted, the group was "rockin' the Michigan Tech ratio" - more than three-quarters of them were guys.
Holt's elegant solution: Put a couple on the chair lift with one guy trailing behind them, then switch off for the trip down the mountain.
That ratio was what convinced William Fortin, a second-year bioinformatics student from Grand Blanc, Mich., to show up.
It was a fun date, he said; they'd mostly talked about their majors and their summers.
But would they stay in touch once they got back down the hill?
"Hard to say," he said. "You never know how these things go."
One of the new couples to ride up the mountain were Jake McCann and Katie Bor, who both had good things to say about the experience.
"It was a cool idea," said McCann, a fifth-year electrical engineering student.
"It's fun," said Bor, a second-year environmental engineering major who was talked into going by her friend. "It's nice to meet new people."
Asked how the date went, they laughed nervously, which is about what one would expect from an interview conducted five seconds after the date finished.
Holt and Norris were happy with the weekend, which also included a crowd of 150 for the Dating Doctor.
"The boys were quoting stuff from the Dating Doctor today," Norris said.
They plan to make the speed dating an annual event.
"Next year, I think we'll do more advertising, hopefully get a larger turnout," Holt said.
Garrett Neese can be reached at gneese@mininggazette.com
