She caught his eye twirling for the opposing team
Donald Tims was captivated by a girl twirling a baton on the sidelines of a high school football game in 1973.
“I actually told my brother, I said, ‘Man, what a pretty girl. I’m going to kiss her one of these days,’” says Donald, who was a student at Oak Grove High School.
The only thing he knew about the mystery girl was that she attended his school’s rival, Joe T. Robinson High School.
Several months later, his best friend invited him to a Joe T. Robinson basketball game; the friend’s girlfriend was a player.
“I had never been to a girls’ basketball game before,” says Donald, who was 17. “They didn’t have that at Oak Grove.”
As they sat in the stands watching the friend’s girlfriend on the court, Donald spotted the mystery girl again. Not only was she a majorette and a basketball player — she was the best friend of the girl who was dating Donald’s best friend.
“I was finally able to meet her that night,” Donald says.
Jamie Morton had not noticed Donald before that, but it was in the plan for her to meet him.
“My friend said her friend was coming and that he was bringing someone with him,” Jamie says. “I just said, ‘OK.’”
Jamie surmises that Donald’s invitation had less to do with setting them up on a date than it did on keeping her occupied so her friend could focus on Donald’s friend.
“While she was talking with the other fellow, she wanted me to stay busy talking with Donald, so we kind of got to talking that way,” Jamie says.
Donald didn’t care about intentions.
“I was very happy she was talking to me, because she was looking pretty fine at the time,” he says.
Donald and his friend drove the girls home that night.
“I took her home and shook her hand, I think, and we left,” he quips. “I didn’t have transportation — we were in my friend’s car — so I didn’t see her for a while after that.”
His family didn’t have a phone at their home so he had to walk to a phone booth a couple of miles away just to call Jamie.
“We kept in contact, though,” she says.
It was about six months before they could get together again, but they managed to go out a couple of times after that.
Donald left school before graduation to join the military in 1974. Jamie and her mother drove him to the bus stop when it was time for him to go.
“When we took him to the bus stop, I didn’t think it was a goodbye goodbye,” she says. “I just thought it was a ‘we’ll see you later’ goodbye. I would say I was in love, really.”
She might not have realized how long she would need to wait to see him later.
“We didn’t see each other for the next three years,” he says.
Jamie sent Donald a few letters while he was serving in Germany, but she got no response.
“I wasn’t a big letter writer,” he says.
“From what he tells me I was still on his mind, though,” Jamie says.
She sent him a photo while he was gone, and though he still didn’t write her back, he held onto her picture.
“She was the first person I called when I got back,” he says
Jamie didn’t know when he was returning home.
“I was happy because that connection was there again,” she says. “I had lost contact with him and I was really surprised to get the call. It really wasn’t in my mind anymore.”
Jamie had graduated high school by then and was working and taking classes
at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
“I got my cousin to take me to meet her in Burns Park the next day,” he says.
They had been together for about a year when their talk turned to marriage.
Donald was so nervous when he asked Jamie’s father for her hand in marriage that he stumbled over his words and mistakenly asked if he could marry her mother instead. Her father understood — the nervousness and the request — and gave his blessing.
Jamie and Donald told their families they were going to be married by the justice of the peace, but her grandmother insisted that they make a different plan, including a preacher to officiate.
They exchanged their vows on May 1, 1977, in her grandmother’s home.
“I was wearing a blue suede jacket with a blue bow tie,” Donald says. “We had a wonderful wedding.”
There wasn’t a honeymoon — they went straight to their new apartment as newlyweds — but they have taken several trips together since.
They have three children — Mario Tims of Little Rock, Shara Wade of San Antonio, and Lonnell Tims of Shannon Hills. They also have five grandchildren.
Donald and Jamie lived in California from 1981 until 1994, when they returned to Central Arkansas. Donald is a retired psychiatric nursing assistant. Jamie worked for many years for Blue Cross Blue Shield and for the FDIC.
“We took our vows seriously,” she says. “God was there with us. It’s been that way since.”