The number of eligible bachelor and bachelorette faculty members has taken a dive the past few months as seemingly endless amounts of teachers get engaged . Among those who will be tying the knot in the near future are Theology Teacher Mike Lally, Science Teacher Bradley Mueller, and Campus Minister Julie Anderson. 

In an effort to better understand these factually members and their relationship on a more personal level, the Prep News decided to speak with each engaged person and their fiancée to give our readers an inside scoop into their romance.

Mike Lally

The first faculty member we spoke to was Lally, who happens to be the most recent to get engaged, having done so this past Valentine’s Day. However, he has been dating his fiancée, Molly Krippene, for over five years, including three as a long distance couple. 

They began their journey together as friends throughout their time at St. Louis University, where both attended undergraduate school. Their friendship blossomed as they grew closer during their junior year and they remained close as they graduated.  

“People were leaving St. Louis to go to jobs and go to different places to continue their lives after graduation,” said Lally. “Less and less people were there and we started spending more and more time with each other.”

It wasn’t until the day that Lally was moving to Denver for his ASC year that he finally asked her out, meaning the first year of their newfound romantic relationship would be tested by long-distance dating. Their long distance would continue for two more years as Lally attended Yale’s Divinity school in Connecticut.

“It was a very intentional relationship,” said Lally. ‘It was not easy in any way, but it was very meaningful in the fact that we had to make a choice each and every day. (We had to decide) Are we going to talk today . . . are we going to try and spend some quality time together from 1500 miles apart, then once a month or once every six weeks or so, we would intentionally travel to each other, somehow, so we can spend some time together.”

Lally noted that it wasn’t always a fairy tale.

“There were definitely some difficult moments, but the difficult moments never came from our relationship itself," said Lally. “It always came from the other stresses of life that were making it hard to focus on our relationship like we should.” 

While their dating phase began after a long friendship, Lally could tell there was something special about Krippene early on. 

“I remember, maybe this is our junior year, that Molly was the head of a large organization at SLU called Dance Marathon and I remember Molly gave a talk to a large audience of people in the middle of this huge Dance Marathon, a multi-hour assembly,” said Lally. “She was probably speaking to several hundred people and I just remember her being on stage and speaking under the bright lights and I think that was the first moment I was like ‘whoa, she is someone special.” 

When Lally was coming back to St. Louis to join Krippene, they had worries about whether being in the same city might affect their relationship. 

“We actually had worries because we've never been in the same town. What would it be like living in the same town?” said Lally. “But more than anything else, it was so much easier and better to be in the same town and to just share in the very simple things of life. Like, I get to see her on a weeknight and it's not some huge event where we have to traverse the country to see each other. You can just begin to live a normal life.” 

Krippene has been supportive of Lally’s time-consuming passion for coaching cross country and track and field. In fact, she’s known by many of the runners for the times she has gone to the meets to cheer the team and her favorite coach on. 

“The cool thing is, she gets to be a part of those big things I do here too,” said Lally. “She would get to know some of the runners, ask about them, and be able to wish the best for them and cheer them on. So while yes, sometimes that takes time away from what we get to spend together, she knows that I love those things and am passionate about those things and wants to share those things with me.” 

The Covid-19 pandemic and the slowdown it created gave them an opportunity 

“You had to start relearning how to teach in the middle of Covid, so I think that probably took some of my energy and maybe delayed our engagement a little bit,” said Lally. “But besides that, I think we've actually both enjoyed the quiet and the peace that comes with life being a little bit more slower paced. Being able to focus on the small groups of people that are really important to us, our families, and a couple really close friends, it makes it (my relationship) very intentional.” 

Lally proposed on Valentine's Day during a surprise dinner with his and her parents. 

“It was so special and like I said, such a surprise,” said Krippene. “I think it's really just emblematic of his intentional nature and his thoughtful nature.” 

Both Lally and Krippene are committed to their Catholic beliefs. 

“I think we are both deeply committed to our faith . . . and so we are trying the best we can to live out a faithful Catholic relationship,” said Lally. “It's certainly not perfect, and I'm not sure anyone has a perfect Catholic relationship but we definitely believe in what the Church teaches about a romantic relationship and we're trying to live that out as best we can.” 

“I’m really excited to start the next chapter of our relationship as a married couple,” said Krippene. “There’s so much to look forward to: the wedding, finding a house together, and starting a family. Everything we’ve done and faced together so far has been wonderful and strengthened our relationship, and I’m confident it will be the same in all the years to come.”

“I understand the love of God better and more clearly because of her. As a theology teacher and as someone whose faith is very important to him, that is why I love her and that's why she's so important to me,” said Lally. “That's why I'm so excited to marry her because I actually get insight into the love of God that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”

Bradley Mueller

The story of Mueller’s engagement goes back to 2017 when he was introduced to his fiancée, Katie Lyon. At the time they were both in separate relationships. 

“When we met that night we just had this really good conversation,” said Lyon. “We definitely both noticed that there was some sort of connection there.”

They went about a year without seeing each other before rekindling again, this time on Instagram. Mueller had just posted about a car show he attended when Lyon commented. While the exact comment has been unconfirmed, both Mueller and Lyon say it was a joke about Lyon liking the car. 

“I kind of like slid into his DM’s and we reconnected and we were chatting and we ended up meeting out and the rest is kind of history,” said Lyon. “We started dating pretty quickly.” 

“We started hanging out quite a bit and we were out of our relationships at that point,” said Mueller. “Our love life developed really quickly because we got to meet each other's families pretty quickly . . . I seek approval a lot from my family on who I'm dating and I think she is very much the same. Both of our families really loved the other person.” 

They got engaged at Mueller’s family lake house in the Lake of the Ozarks. He brought his close family from Kansas City and Lyon’s parents from St. Louis. 

In addition to family, the Catholic Church has been a big part of their relationship.

 “Before I met him, I really wanted to get reconnected with God and going back to church and like the first or second weekend that we had kind of like reconnected and were starting to date on a Sunday night at eight o'clock and like out of nowhere, he's like ‘you want to go to Mass?’” said Lyon. “He was talking about SLU nine o'clock Mass. It just kind of felt like a sign, like a God moment, and I was like ‘wow, this is like really cool.’ Since we started dating my relationship with God has gotten much stronger and I really think part of that was because of him.” 

Lyon, who is a nurse practitioner, and Mueller, a science teacher who originally wanted to be a doctor, also found a shared love of science. However, perhaps most notably they share the same family values. 

“Family is huge,” said Lyon. “I come from a really big Italian family and he comes from a big family as well, and I think we both really value our families and spending time with our families. It's been really exciting getting engaged and knowing I became really close with his family and he's become close to my family too and we're kind of like immersing those two worlds which is really cool to see.”

One tradition the duo has started to integrate Lyon further into the SLUH community is annual trips to the Dauphin Players shows. She has also become a staple attending Mueller’s soccer games. 

Both are looking forward to marrying and blending their families and lives even further. They aren’t looking too far ahead, though. Rather, they are choosing to focus on the present. 

“Something that's really important to us that we've kind of started recently is whenever we get home from the day, we just hang out for a couple minutes,” said Mueller. “I think when you're planning on getting married or once you start that chain of events, it's really easy for people to ask when are you getting married and then picking up kids, and then the questions just keep coming so it's really hard to live in the present. We're really trying to do a lot of things just to be present on a day instead of looking forward too much.” 

 “I mean he's a very very thoughtful guy,” said Lyon. “He's not one that maybe does real big grand romantic gestures, but there's so many little things that he does every day that add up. I would just say he takes care of me and I take care of him. I don't know, I think you guys know he's a wonderful guy and I feel very lucky to be marrying him.”

Julie Anderson 

Anderson’s engagement began on Nov. 2 of this last year, her two-year anniversary dating her boyfriend Brandon Lewis, a teacher at Fort Zumwalt South and former Vianney teacher. 

He proposed during a backstage tour at the Fox Theatre, an important place for their relationship. Because Anderson’s mom works there, they receive lots of free tickets and enjoy seeing shows together.

“Afterwards we went to the wine bar that was our first date and met up with her mom and dad who I had talked to before (the engagement),” said Lewis. “We had dinner and drinks after that, and it was a very great evening.” 

Anderson’s relationship with Lewis began a few years ago when they went on a couple of dates for about a month. That initial connection didn’t last very long, though, as they ended up breaking up. 

“I ended it just because I really wasn't in the right spot to be dating at the time and so we went our separate ways and then about a year and a half later, we just kind of started reconnecting again and we met up,” said Anderson. “We reconnected over school things we had both taken. You know, summer trips out of the country, and we were kind of asking each other for advice.” 

“From there it was like, ‘Oh yeah, this was a really good thing,’” said Anderson. “I think we were just maybe too fresh out of a relationship and I was just maybe not in as healthy of a state as I thought I was in to be dating.” 

Anderson believes her relationship is a tangible example of the ideal relationship discussed in her Christian Life Choices course from last semester. 

“We always want to do something for the other that would make them happy even if it's not what we choose and that can be as simple as picking out what shows we want to watch,” said Anderson. “Like, I might not want to watch this show, but I know Brandon does watch that show tonight. And those types of things that happen all the time—just selfless acts of really really not being concerned about how things inconvenience us like the other person, but we know like, ‘I'm going to do something because I know it's going to make Brandon feel really special and loved’ and Brandon does stuff like that for me all the time.”

“Brandon and I did spend a lot of time together that we probably wouldn't have spent as much time together if it weren't a pandemic,” said Anderson. “But we really valued the fact that we could kind of have an understanding of learning about each other in a more close up way. Like ‘how do you deal with stress like how, how do you deal with adversity?’” 

Both Anderson and Lewis are excited to get married. 

“She's a very dedicated individual so in everything that she does, she gives her whole heart to,” said Lewis. “For instance you know she's a volleyball coach, I mean she is absolutely in love with that position of doing that work she's a campus minister and she gives her whole being to doing that. Alongside with that she's just very faith-filled so that's very important to me. But to be honest, with everything she does she's very passionate. I really like having people around me that, you know, enjoy their work and enjoy life, and that it's really easy to be around her, because she really enjoys life.” 

“He’s just a great guy and I'm really excited to marry him,” said Anderson. 

“We'll be married by the end of 2021, which is great. The wedding planning is going very well. We are both really excited and we get really excited about planning things and it's essentially a big party for us so it's been a good time,” said Lewis. “We don't live together but soon after we get married, we'll be buying a house together and that's very exciting for me just to be thinking about that in the near future.” 

Anderson and Lewis are the only couple of the three reported on to have a set date: December 4. Mueller and Lyon have stressed their focus on the present, not as much the future. Lally and Krippene are shooting for about a 15-month engagement. All are hopeful that by the time of their weddings the vaccines will allow for many of the Covid restrictions to be lifted.