Mutual love of Razorbacks evolves into marriage
JoLeigh McManis’ friends wanted to set her up with Ross Davidson for a long time, but she had avoided an introduction — until he showed up in her exam room.
In 2017, JoLeigh, a nurse at Conway Regional Medical Center, was getting pressure from her friends to meet Ross, an EMT.
“I was a single mom,” she says. “My son was about 5 years old then, and I was very content with my life, just very happy. I had told my friends I was just going to be single the rest of my life. I just needed my son.”
Ross’ supervisor was the husband of JoLeigh’s friend and co-worker who started talking to JoLeigh about meeting Ross.
“And he started talking to Ross about me, too, probably for a few weeks,” JoLeigh says.
JoLeigh’s time in nursing school at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences overlapped with Ross’ time on campus for paramedic school in 2016, but if they ever crossed paths they don’t remember it.
“We’re in the same yearbook, though,” JoLeigh says.
Ross had brought patients into the emergency room at Conway Regional, but each time JoLeigh was either not on duty or in a room with another patient — and she was fine with missing him.
“I just kept telling them, ‘No, I’m not going on a date. I don’t want to date,’” she says. “But they were not letting up.”
One friend, the charge nurse, really wanted JoLeigh to meet Ross and got other hospital staff members in on the push, too.
“Other people would ask, ‘Have you met him yet? Have you talked to him? Are y’all going to go on a date? You should Facebook Message him. You should …’ It was nonstop.” She says.
Just before Thanksgiving that year, JoLeigh’s friend discovered Ross was en route with a patient and promptly declared that JoLeigh would be the nurse assigned to that patient.
“I was getting nervous. I was embarrassed and I didn’t even know why. I had to take a background on the patient and I knew what I was doing, but I knew they had been talking about me, and I had to go in there and be a nurse so that made me even more nervous,” she says.
Ross was standing by the computer at the nurses station when JoLeigh finished getting her new patient settled and went into the hallway to fill out the chart. They chatted for a few minutes, exchanged phone numbers, and he left.
“I don’t want to say it was love at first sight at the hospital,” JoLeigh says. “But I definitely was like, ‘OK, I could go on a date with him.’ Like, I could do this now.’”
When he called a couple of days later, she agreed to go out with him, but the Razorbacks were playing and she insisted they go somewhere they could watch the game.
For Ross, this was a promising sign.
“I think that was the first hint that I was going to really fall in love with her, that she liked the Razorbacks,” he says.
“I had no idea he was so gung-ho for the Razorbacks as well,” JoLeigh says.
They went to a bar and grill in Conway and found seats with good views of the big screen TVs.
“So we watched, but we also sat and talked the whole time,” she says. “I was facing the projector, and I remember something happened and I just forgot we were talking, and I was looking at the screen. I just got distracted. I didn’t want him to think I wasn’t interested in him … but that play!”
They went hiking together a few days later, and then she invited him to her sister’s wedding the weekend after that.
“I was like, ‘Is it too early for me to ask him to go to a wedding as a date with me?’ But I was like, ‘Let’s go for it,’” she says.
Ross met JoLeigh’s entire family for the first time at that ceremony, including her son, Boston. Ross didn’t have experience with kids, but he and Boston clicked instantly.
Ross and JoLeigh talked almost every day after their first date, which fell on Black Friday 2017.
Three weeks later, in mid-December, they were browsing wedding rings.
“We did not buy, but we were looking to see what he liked and what I liked,” JoLeigh says. “We were very serious about our relationship and fell in love very quickly with each other.” They had started making plans to marry when, in February, they found out JoLeigh was pregnant with their daughter, AdLeigh, who was born in September.
They exchanged their vows on Nov. 17, 2018, at Angelo’s Garden in Mayflower.
Ross’ supervisor was in the wedding.
“What’s funny is that I had told him I would never date a nurse,” Ross says. “I guess I was always kind of shy to date a nurse. You know, if you have to drop off patients and it goes bad, things can just get really awkward. But this wasn’t awkward.”