Kyly Pyle and Tim Bateman were in their mid-20s and had been dating for more than a year. Both liked to travel, so Kyly wasn’t surprised when Tim suggested they take a trip during the Fourth of July weekend.

“I asked where we were going, and he wouldn’t tell me,” Kyly says.

She asked what type of clothing she should bring, and he said it was warm everywhere in the United States, so include some shorts.

“When we were 20 minutes from the Kansas City airport, he told me we were heading for Chicago,” she says.

Somewhere in her suitcase, she’d packed her Chicago Cubs T-shirt.

Tim’s turn: “We spent part of the day shopping, walking down Michigan Avenue and then headed for the lakefront park area.”

Tim says he was nervous.

“I had been carrying this big box in my pocket and tried to keep it hidden.”

They stopped, sat on a bench and “I popped the question.”

Kyly said yes.

“Tim pointed over to the John Hancock Center, which is 100 stories tall, and said, ‘That’s where we’re going to have dinner tonight.’ I was surprised and excited,” Kyly says, also smiling.

So how did two former Kansas University students – Tim, from Lawrence, and Kyly, from Halstead – end up on a park bench in Chicago agreeing to marry one another?

Kyly was a cheerleader in high school and played volleyball and basketball for the Halstead Dragons.

Her dad, Kevin Pyle, who designs airplanes for Cessna Aircraft in Wichita, graduated from KU in 1979. Kyly has three brothers, and all are enrolled at KU. Their mother, Mary Jo, teaches kindergarten.

Tim went to Lawrence High School.

“I was more into things like student council and liked to play sports … just for the fun of it,” he says. He likes to run, and has tested himself over 26.2 miles twice in the Chicago and Twin Cities Marathons.

“My mom (Jane Bateman) owns Jane Bateman Interiors, and my dad and stepmom (Jim and Susan Bateman) own The Yarn Barn, downtown. They’ve had businesses in Lawrence for 25 or 30 years,” Tim says. His brother Michael, also his best man, got his undergraduate degree at KU and is working on his Ph.D. in mathematics at Indiana University.

Both Kyly and Tim graduated from KU’s School of Business with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting. They knew one another well enough to be friends; they even belonged to the same business fraternity but didn’t date. After graduation, they went their separate ways and worked for accounting firms in Kansas City.

“We talked occasionally and actually went to a KU basketball game in the Kemper one time,” Tim says.

“That wasn’t a date,” Kyly counters pleasantly.

“I didn’t say it was a date,” he says, grinning. “Just wait – I’m getting to the good part.”

They ran into one another while representing their firms at a recruiting event at KU’s business school. Afterwards they went to The Crossing, just off campus, for a beer.

“I decided to ask her out on a date, and we went to Baja 600 on The Plaza in Kansas City,” Tim says.

Kyly and Tim, both Catholic, were married April 22, 2006, at the St. Lawrence Catholic Chapel by Monsignor Vince Krische. Kyly’s father and Tim both have served as altar boys for Krische.

The first dance at the couple’s wedding reception was to Frank Sinatra’s “Our Love is Here to Stay.”