Double date eventually leads to lifetime together
Kris Fischer’s date was offended by Lisa Gibson’s sense of humor. Kris, however, was delighted by everything she said.
Lisa, the on-air host of KARK Channel 4’s Dialing for Dollars in 1986, as well as the host of her own radio show on KARN, had a policy against blind dates.
Dialing for Dollars had an older audience as did her radio show.
“I was about 23 and the average listener was about 43,” says Lisa, remembering how many of them wanted to fix her up with their sons, nephews and grandsons.
But when an acquaintance stopped her while she was getting some exercise in the Heights and asked if she would consider a double-date with Kris Fischer’s high school best friend, Kevin Smith, she gave in.
Lisa knew of Kris from their time together at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.
“The Chi Omegas would look out the window and watch him run because he’s really fit,” she says.
She was aware, too, of Kevin, the son of local celebrity Big Sam Smith, the Razorbacks broadcaster who preceded Paul Eels.
“I thought, ‘Well, yes, I’ll go out with Big Sam Smith’s son,” Lisa says.
The four of them — Lisa’s acquaintance with Kris and Lisa with Kevin — went to a Razorbacks game followed by dinner. Lisa was her typical outgoing self.
“I was doing all my impersonations and being silly,” she says.
When she got up to go to the bathroom, the young woman who had invited her apologized profusely to Kris and Kevin. She hadn’t known, she insisted, how obnoxious Lisa would be.
“I thought Lisa was hilarious,” Kris says.
Lisa enjoyed the company and was none the wiser about the other girl’s negative assessment.
“I remember leaving that night thinking Kris Fischer and his best friend Kevin Smith were the cutest, most appropriate men,” she says. “There was something about Kris — he was respectful of women, very witty — and I just had fun.”
After that, Kris went back to Dallas, where he lived at the time, and he and Lisa didn’t see each other again for about a year.
Kris had moved back to Little Rock by August 1987 and on a Saturday night he was at the Shrimp, Oyster & Beerhaus (S.O.B.).
“We bumped into each other, literally — I was backing up, he was backing up…” Lisa says.
She re-introduced herself, not assuming for a minute that he would remember her. But he did.
“I think I told her what the other girl had said,” he says. “We just laughed about that and thought it was very funny.”
Kris asked if she would go to church with him the next morning at Calvary Baptist Church, where his father was minister of education. She said sure.
“I don’t think we ever really separated after that church service,” Kris says.
Lisa loved his wit and his pragmatism. He loved that she was a faithful Christian, and that she was funny, interesting and humble.
“She never talked about herself,” he says. “She had had a lot of success, even at 25, but she just never talked about what she was doing. That’s rare.”
Lisa lived in the Heights, within walking distance of Calvary Baptist, where Kris volunteered with the youth program. They were almost constantly in each other’s orbit.
“I had dated some really nice, sweet, good family, beautiful girls, but they were nothing like Lisa — and by that I mean the deepness of her, kind of what made her tick, her wiring,” Kris says.
A few months after they went to church together that first time, their conversation over dinner out turned serious.
“I was just like, ‘I really feel like I’m being prompted by God … this is more serious than I ever envisioned it to be. I just feel like we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives,’” Kris says. “I asked her to marry me. She told me she felt the exact same way.”
He hadn’t planned his proposal, but he had thought about marriage, he says, and he knew the moment was right for him to ask.
They were married on Jan. 29, 1988, at Calvary Baptist, in a ceremony co-officiated by Kris’ father and the pastor at Lisa’s church, Fellowship Bible.
It was a small, simple, intimate event, with about 20 guests.
“I was on the radio and people were saying they could sell tickets and put this at Robinson Center,” Lisa says. “I didn’t want any of that. This was just the most perfect thing.”
They had private dinner reception at the Capital Hotel and left the next day for an eight-day honeymoon in Innsbruck, Austria.
Kris and Lisa raised three children — Sidney, Gibson and Anna Margaret — and are now “empty nesters.” They take frequent road trips, often with one of Lisa’s health podcasts or an audiobook playing in the car.
“Empty nesting is the best invention since the internet,” Lisa says, “because it’s the time after you’ve raised your kids, and if you’ve been a student of each other — that’s why you have to pursue each other the entire time you’re married — you can enjoy just being together.”