Illini Couple: Thermodynamic Duo

Nancy and Ron Howell celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary in August 2025. The couple met on a blind date at a 1955 DKE pledge dance. (Image courtesy of Nancy Anderson Howell)

It was the end of DKE Hell Week, 1955. The hazing outrages at the fraternity house had been crowned by a fire at the top of the staircase. Ron Howell, ’58 ENG, MS ’59 ENG, PHD ’67 ENG, recalls how he and the other pledges had to douse the blaze with water that they carried mouthful by mouthful up the stairs. “And then,” he says, “we had to sleep on the cold pile of ashes.”

But Howell’s luck was turning. His blind date for the pledge dance was Nancy Anderson Howell, ’58 ED, EDM ’65. At the dance, her earrings pinched her lobes. Could he just slip them into his pocket? He could. Next day, he brought them over to her digs at Evans Residence Hall and asked for another date. Three weeks later, they’d been together every night, and he was flunking thermodynamics because he hadn’t turned in his assignments. Ron threw himself on the mercy of the professor, who relented, eventually awarding his errant student a C.

The couple married while still undergraduates. Ron went on to faculty posts at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and the University of South Florida. Nancy taught elementary school for 17 years and worked on a grant to help at-risk high school students. Since 2000, they have lived in Meridian, Idaho, near their children and grandchildren, including son Timothy Anderson Howell, ’81 BUS, MS ’82 BUS. A couple of years ago, Ron was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and now lives in a long-term care facility. Nancy remains in good health and still plays golf. In August, the couple celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary.

But to return to that first semester together, when Ron was tanking in thermodynamics, it’s interesting to know that Nancy, too, went briefly south. “I got a D in geography,” she says. And it’s fascinating to learn that Ron’s teaching and research career was grounded in—thermodynamics. “Thermodynamics was an interesting experience, and as I got further into my undergraduate work,
I just kept on with it,” he says.

“We both overcame our beginnings,” Nancy says. “Maybe we inspired each other.”

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