SHE WAS A PREACHER'S

He was the athletic, all American boy who drove the girls crazy. She was the pretty minister's daughter who'd just been crowned Homecoming Queen.

"He was wonderful-so gentle and caring"

The lovebirds were introduced by a teacher at a three-day speech and drama competition at Parkview High School in Springfield, Mo.

"Brad immediately started flirting with me, and I was flattered," says Sarah, who attended Park view to nearby Kickpoo High School.

"My friends were all jealous, but I was kind of surprised by all his attention. Although I was Homecoming Queen that year, I was tall and thin and had always thought of myself as geeky looking."

Thier first date was on a Saturday night, Valentine's Day, and Brad took her to the ritziest restaurant in town for an intimate candlelight dinner.

"At 11:30 that night, he drove me home and walked me up to my front door," Sarh recalls. "Then he learned forward and kissed me.

"After we' been going out for three months, Brad told me loved me. But I didn't say the same thing back because I wanted to keep him interested in me.

"That led to a lot of fights between us. He was used to girls falling all over him, and I was the first girl who treated him as an equal.

"Now, he wanted a deeper, loving relationship, and I was playing hard to get."

But the romance was doomed because they were going off to different colleges. The tearful end came just one week before the start of fall semester.

"We both shed lots of tears that night," Sarah recall. "I was heartbroken and so was he, but we both knew it was time to move on."

Two years later, Sarah got married and had daughter, Hannah, now 9. But the marriage lasted just one year.

She now lives in Prtland, Oregon, with writer Greg Netzer- who once roomed with Brad at the University of Missouri.

"A month before Brad and I split up, he gave me gold locket with our pictures in it," says Sarah. "he told me he would always love me, and by keeping the locket I would never forget him."