Featured Testimonial About Creighton University
Creighton is a place where you can talk about what truly matters to you, where people are more willing to show you the essence of themselves in a way not frequently encountered.
The organs are playing the triumphant bridal march and friends are clinging glasses in celebration. It’s wedding season, and we’re feeling all the summer lovin’ vibes.
Which is why we’re bringing back a special edition of our popular series: Creighton Love Stories.
Read about these four couples — how Creighton brought them together and how their relationships blossomed on campus.
* * *
Kayla (Thompson) Turco, BSW’17, and Johnny Turco, BA’18, JD’19
Kayla scanned a classroom full of philosophy majors she didn’t know until she found a familiar face. Hey! A guy from her previous philosophy class last semester was over there.
She sat next to Johnny.
Weeks went by. They were together for every class, getting to know each other and building a friendship. She’d given Johnny her number at a friend’s party. Little did Kayla know, Johnny was plotting.
He did need some extra encouragement from a friend. But Johnny made his move — he invited Kayla to study for midterms with the hopes that their meetup would lead to a surprise first-date dinner.
It did.
And they both had a blast. But Kayla needed a nudge, too. She didn’t think she was ready for a relationship, especially since she planned to move home to Minnesota after she graduated. Johnny asked her out again — and it wasn’t until a chat with her best friend that Kayla said yes.
“She said, ‘Well, it's not like you're going to marry him. Why not just go out on one date?’” Kayla said.
Johnny and Kayla were married at St. John’s Church on Oct. 24, 2020. They welcomed their first child, Jack, last year. Johnny works as a bankruptcy attorney and Kayla is a social worker for Omaha Public Schools.
“We frequently support others during some of the most stressful times of their lives, and the Jesuit values that we took with us upon graduating from Creighton continue to guide what we do professionally and personally,” Kayla said.
* * *
Jackie (Lamprecht) Acosta-Trejo, BSBA’02, and Col. Will Acosta-Trejo, JD’04
Some Creighton love stories begin in classrooms, in study groups or in quiet corners of the library. Jackie and Will are not afraid to admit it: Theirs does not.
They got introduced at The Blue Jay Bar and Grill in 2001.
A thoughtful idea by a mutual friend inside the beloved campus bar ended up changing their lives.
From that night on, Jackie and Will were fast friends, growing their relationship through all the shared experiences most Creighton students have together (studying, lunches, hangouts). And their connection kept strengthening. In 2003, they started dating.
Seven months was all it took from there. Will proposed to Jackie.
After marrying in 2004, they moved to Kentucky, where Will served on active duty in the U.S. Army and Jackie continued her new career as a CPA. They returned to Omaha in 2009 and started their family, and they’ve been raising their sons, Liam and Drew, ever since.
Two decades have passed since their first introduction at The Jay, which closed in 2017. Neither could have dreamed how that brief moment would link them together forever. But they’re grateful for it all the same.
* * *
Kelsea (Worcester) Gillespie, BSBA’14, and Matthew Gillespie, BA’13
Kelsea was working the 7:30 a.m. shift at the Creighton Students Union office and Matthew didn’t need to be there. Yet he kept popping over to start a conversation with her.
Like, every five minutes.
This was the guy who, a year prior, kept confusing Kelsea's name with someone else when he wrote CSU minutes. But Matthew was later elected CSU president, and Kelsea was the finance vice president, so they were getting to know each other quite well.
One night, they took a drive. Just to chat. That morphed into dinner.
“From then on, we were inseparable,” Kelsea said.
At their day-job: Restructuring CSU to provide representation for underrepresented students, reforming student organization funding to be more straightforward and user-friendly, running top-tier events for students, and returning more student fees to graduate and professional students.
And after hours: eating dinner, watching “The Office,” chatting in a park and hanging out with friends.
They got married a year later at St. John’s Church. They live with their two kids in the Minneapolis area. And it all started at Creighton.
“There’s something magical about Creighton,” Kelsea said. “It’s a place where you can talk about what truly matters to you, where people are more willing to show you the essence of themselves in a way not frequently encountered. This culture, along with the shared Jesuit values, had us talking about the ‘big issues’ early in our friendship, and helped us to create a foundation that allows us to keep growing together.”
* * *
Colleen Wuebben, BA’75, and Ted Wuebben, BSBA’74
Ted and Colleen had just been introduced at a friend’s birthday party when the Nebraska Cornhuskers football game started playing in the other room. Everyone headed that way, toward the TV. Everyone except Ted and Colleen.
“I asked, aren’t you going to go in?’” Ted said. “And she said, ‘No, I don’t really like sports. I don’t really get along with college athletes.”
Gulp.
Ted was a 6-foot-6 Creighton basketball player.
But he played it cool. And kept the conversation going without revealing his secret.
They soon started dating. A month went by before a friend told Colleen, the night before the Bluejays season started, that Ted was on the team.
But they’d developed a strong enough bond by then — every encounter was filled with jokes and laughter, and shared beliefs and dreams. Ted would walk up from Swanson Hall and meet Colleen at Reinert Alumni Memorial Library.
“We hit it off right away,” Ted said.
It was probably just a few months into their relationships that Ted told Colleen he wanted to spend their lives together. They were walking on the Mall, and Ted referenced how married couples celebrating anniversaries got featured on radio broadcaster Paul Harvey’s show. He wanted that someday.
Colleen never forgot that conversation.
She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2005. She died in 2013, nearly 40 years after she and Ted were married at Creighton Prep.
A year before Colleen died, she wrote this poem for Ted:
In the glow of new love, I asked,
while walking across campus holding hands,
what his hopes were.
A stereotypical BMOC couple: his familiar height and sports role
gregariously steering his girlfriend through recognition and greetings.
Private questions in public settings seldom bring real answers,
but he stopped, creating a small eddy of jostling sidestepping walkers…
“To be on the Paul Harvey show.”
Ever joking and light hearted, this seriousness left me struggling
for context: was this about local publicity, some sports award, or new talent?
Noting the furrowed brow, he offered
“On the Paul Harvey radio show, every day he features a couple
Married for 40, 50, 60 years, and tells their story.
I want to be on the Paul Harvey show.”
Undaunted by a crowd or the possibility of failure observed, some
Can risk, define or even develop themselves before an audience.
Displaying the intimacy of a sculptured David, taking the last second shot.
Teeing off surrounded by onlookers- they carry our hopes in their
Casually slung packs; making the unlikely seem more possible.
38 years and counting…
