21 Years Later, Hawks Reconnect — and Tie the Knot

  They met through a mutual connection, hit it off, a first date on a hay ride on a crisp fall night.

It seems like one of those “happily ever after” stories. Eventually, though, Tony LaRusso, ’02, and Kristin (Suter) LaRusso, ’03, went their separate ways, Tony said.

But it wasn’t the end of their story. Twenty-one years later, they said, they reconnected and rekindled an affection that saw the couple eventually marry, surrounded by Rockhurst classmates, on New Year’s Day 2022.

When they first met, Tony was a freshman at Rockhurst, Kristin a senior in high school and a friend of his sister’s. So they weren’t strangers when Kristin arrived on the Rockhurst campus. And her first night, they met back up at a party, soon having their first date on a hay ride. After dating for about a year, they broke up — though with mutual friends and on a small campus, neither got too far away.

“We continued to have the same friend group during college, and would see each other on campus and out socially,” Tony said. “After college, we’d maybe see each other every couple of years.”

It was because of that friend group that the couple reconnected in 2020.

“Kristin had a get-together with some of her Rockhurst friends,” Tony said. “One of her friends found old VHS tapes with hours of footage from college. They wanted to watch the footage. They invited myself and some of my Rockhurst buddies to come over, but most were busy. I played golf, then was at my sister's house, and almost didn't go, but Matt Recker, ’02, talked me into it last-minute.”

They remained in contact after the party, Tony said, because one of the other attendees tested positive for COVID-19. That turned into conversationa and hanging out once more. Both found it a little awkward at first.

“We took things slow for a couple of months,” he said. “Once we told our Rockhurst friends, universally they were shocked, and couldn't believe it.”

By the time the couple got engaged, that shock turned into an eagerness to celebrate this Hawk love decades in the making.

“Everybody was pumped, and viewed the wedding as a Rockhurst reunion,” Tony said. “Everybody was ready to see each other, catch up, and celebrate.”