It’s like something from a Nicholas Sparks novel: teenagers in love, split up by life’s troubles, create lives apart from each other but reunite 50 years later because of the school where they first met. But this is better than fiction; this is for real. 

The couple in question, Bill and Gerry Smalley of Beavercreek, are serving as Grand Marshalls for this year’s Main Elementary PTO 5K Run and Fun Walk. The race takes place Saturday, May 15 at 8 a.m. Cost is $20 for adults and $15 for kids 17 and younger, with t-shirt. Proceeds will be used to purchase new playground equipment at Main. Registration form at www.keysports.net/mainElementary2010.pdf. Register online at www.active.com.

Like the circuitous route of the 5K, which starts and ends at Beavercreek High School, 2660 Dayton-Xenia Rd., Bill and Gerry’s lives keep coming back around to their old school. And to one another.

The Smalleys both attended Main in the early to mid 50s when it was the one and only Beavercreek High School. They are members of the class of 1954, the last graduating class from Main, which served as an elementary, middle and high school for 18 years from 1932 to 1950. Main was a middle school and high school for four more years. The current high school opened for business in 1955.

“I started at Main in first grade,” Gerry related. “I grew up in what was then a very primitive rural area near Grange Hall Road and the railroad tracks, close to Research Park Drive today. The first time I saw indoor running water, not from an outdoor pump, was at Main. Same with indoor plumbing.”

“All those newfangled things,” Bill said with a laugh.

Gerry is an admitted Main-aholic. “I loved school,” she shared. “I’d get upset if I was sick and couldn’t come to school. I had four siblings but Main was the place where I saw my peers. I lived out where there was no one else around.”

In high school, Gerry played clarinet with the marching band. Much like today’s band, the Beavercreek High School band of the 50s had a stellar reputation. “We played during halftime of a Cleveland Browns regular-season game,” she said. “We would practice an hour a day before school started.”

Bill was an athlete, with football his primary sport. “I didn’t get to play a lot because we lived on a farm and I was busy with chores. But my freshman year I remember getting on the bus before school was out, traveling to games, coming back to school and then making my way home, mostly by walking, which was about five miles away.” He also ran track.

Bill Smalley and Gerry (Johannes) Smalley dancing at the Beavercreek High School junior prom in spring, 1953. Prom was held that year at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Dayton.

Bill and Gerry’s romance started at Main too. They dated from freshman year to junior year. Then Bill’s life changed dramatically. “We went our separate ways,” he said, adding, “Actually I went my separate way and never got back.”

Bill joined the U.S. Army in the fall of 1953. He didn’t walk with the rest of his classmates during graduation ceremonies. Instead, he was repairing and maintaining anti-aircraft guns surrounding Washington, D.C. He earned his GED in 1954 from the University of Maryland.

Bill served three years and then eventually landed in Dallas, Texas, where he worked for Coca-Cola. He married and had three children – Steve, Cindy and Rodney. He lived in the Dallas area 36 years.

Gerry moved on as well. She married husband Frank Jetter, to whom she was married 42 years. She worked for GM seven years then quit after their first child, Amy, was born. She and Frank had another child, Perry.

In 1965, Gerry took classes at the newly opened Wright State University. She earned a bachelor of science degree in education and hired on as a first grade teacher at Fairbrook Elementary in 1970. However, once again, her life turned toward Main.

Gerry transferred to her old school in 1978. She taught all grades from third to kindergarten, but spent the bulk of her time, 10 years total, as Mrs. Jetter, the kindergarten teacher. She retired from Main in 1997. She continues to interact with Main third grade classes as an interpreter at Beavercreek’s historical Wartinger Park.

Now it was time for Bill’s life to turn toward Main. In 2001, the class of 1954 began planning its 50^th reunion. There was a flurry of activity on the internet, as the reunion committee located old classmates through email. And that’s when Gerry and Bill connected again.

The two of them had seen each other twice in the intervening years: once after Bill finished boot camp, and one other time after they had begun their families. But each of their spouses died in early 1999. The sparks began to fly again and by 2003 they decided to marry, 50 years after their first relationship had ended.

Bill couldn’t believe how much things had changed since he’d left. “Beavercreek was rural when I left,” he shared. “There was no mall. Lantz Road, where Gerry lived for awhile, use to be a gravel road. I remember the bus going down there kicking up a big cloud of dust. There was no U.S. 35. I couldn’t believe how much everything had changed. I was totally in awe.”

But Gerry hadn’t changed, or at least not too much. “She was basically the same person but had matured,” Bill said. “I was most surprised she’d become a teacher.”

Bill misses the climate and friendly “How-do” nature of Texans. He might still be there if not for Gerry and those 50^th reunion Main communications. And now, because of the 5K, their lives have come around to Main one more time.