Voice of the Falcons: Flying Since 1979

HRHS Chronicle

HRHS Chronicle

HRHS Chronicle

Style By Thrift
February 12, 2024
Opening Game
October 2, 2023
Follow Us on Twitter
Follow Us on Instagram

Romance blossoms at HR

Nicholas and Kate Taylor at their wedding. PhotoCo: Nicholas Taylor
Nicholas and Kate Taylor at their wedding. PhotoCo: Nicholas Taylor

 

marriage-in-the_20401839_d51315fb978c879d7a956d49006d94dbcc5f15e8
Statistics for marriage over the years. GraphicCo: Kathryn Lopez  Sources: washingtonpost.com, cdc.gov

  Over 2,000,000 people get married in the United States every year, and out of that number, very few marry their high school sweetheart, according to cdc.gov. When romance blooms among members of a staff, whether they work at the same office or in a school, the chances of marriage get even smaller. Yet all these percentages and statistics don’t mean that, every so often, staff members still don’t find themselves falling in love.

  For Nicholas Taylor, school counselor, and Katie Clifford, social studies teacher and now Katie Taylor, this idea of true love has become a wonderful reality.

  “We met here,” said Nicholas, “so it’s kind of one of those office romances. Typically that’s frowned upon, but when you meet the right person, you just know. We started dating and fell in love, and we got married and moved in. We got a dog, and now we’re having a baby.”

  Although they do work at the same school, Nicholas and Katie actually don’t see each other very often, if at all. Usually, Nicholas is busy in the counseling office and Katie is preoccupied with her classes. However, they both take comfort in knowing that if either of them ever needed anything, they’re only a short walk away from each other.

  “If anything, our marriage actually benefits me because he’s so nice, and so I feel like people associate me with being nice since he is. So it kind of makes me look good,” Katie laughed.

  Since they work at the same place, Nicholas is able to discuss and chat about school-wide events with his wife without needing to explain them first, and vice versa.

  For Nicholas, being married to another staff member has few downsides, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. “With any teacher or staff, you’re always going to have some students that don’t particularly like them,” Nicholas said. “Luckily, we haven’t come across this much but there’s been once or twice when a kid didn’t like Mrs.Taylor, and because they didn’t like her, they didn’t like me. So they wouldn’t work with me anymore.”

  Yet even this is not much of a downside for Katie. She said, “I hope kids understand that we don’t talk about students, like confidentiality wise. So when kids go to talk to Mr.Taylor, it’s completely safe and I don’t hear about that sort of stuff, unless, maybe it’s an issue about me. Then we try to work things out with the kid, and we’re very professional about that, so I think that’s the only issue. But I don’t know if that’s really come up that often.”

  Another staff marriage is between Amy Larsen, also a school counselor, and Kevin Larsen, director of bands.

  “I think it’s really fun,” Amy said regarding her marriage to Kevin. “We actually don’t see each other at work all that much, but if there’s something that happened at school, like a whole school related event, we can talk about it. And he knows what I’m talking about, whereas if I were at a different school, he might have no idea.”

  As the Larsen’s are in a similar situation to the Taylor’s, they also have some of the same difficulties.

  “It can be hard sometimes,” she said, “because students get mad at teachers sometimes, so hopefully they don’t feel weird talking to me about it. I’m able to stay objective about it and not get personally offended if they’re saying something bad about my husband.”

  However, just like with the Taylor’s, this is not a constant, reoccurring issue that they deal with all the time. For them, it’s barely a downside.

  So although office romances come with their share of difficulties, married staff attest that their relationships are really no different than any other couple’s, and might even come with more benefits than the average romance.

Kathryn Lopez, Staff Reporter

Marriage in the staff picture
Amy and Kevin Larsen at their wedding. PhotoCo: Amy Larsen
Marriage in the staff
Nicholas and Katie Taylor at their wedding. PhotoCo: Nicholas Taylor

 

 

Donate to HRHS Chronicle

Your donation will support the student journalists of Highlands Ranch High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to HRHS Chronicle

Activate Search
Romance blossoms at HR