Interview folks enough times, and you get to understand plenty about their politics, their community efforts, their professions.

But ask how someone ended up in the most important partnership of a lifetime — that’s right, marriage — and a few surprises emerge. Like the time someone dubbed Deanell Reece a “chick.”

The story goes that Reece, then a law student, had been volunteering at a firm near her childhood home when she took a call from a guy she’d never met. The guy had heard about her from one of his own friends, who’d encouraged him about the “chick over at the law firm.”

The caller: John Tacha, asking Deanell to go on a blind date. She accepts. Relationship ensues. Marriage comes a few years later, in 1973.

Fast-forward 36 years: While the guy who dubbed Deanell a “chick” is still around — and still works in Concordia — the subject of such description now lives in a different place, under a different name and with an entirely different title.

That would be Deanell Reece Tacha, a University of Michigan Law School graduate who went on to become a White House fellow, then work at a Washington law firm, then join the law faculty at Kansas University before being appointed to the federal bench by President Reagan. The rural Lawrence resident is a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals, previously having served as chief judge for its 10th Circuit.

“Chick.” Really?

“Not exactly politically correct,” she said, after retelling the story of how she’d met John, briefly objecting to its inclusion in the couple’s relationship tale.

A few laughs later, she’d agreed to overrule herself. The testimony would prove admissible.

“Just be sure to put it in quotes or something,” she said, in her defense.

Yes, your honor. I’m just hoping this stands up on appeal.