Cara Palmer Gibbons

married

10/11/14

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Joliet Junior College, A.A. 1996
Mississippi State University
Northern Illinois University
University of South Florida

Despite all of this education, I am still 1 year away from my BS in Elementary Education. This is what happens when you keep moving around and changing schools (and majors)!

Other than the '89 A Capella European Tour to Germany and Austria, I have only spent one day out of the country on a trip to Windsor, Canada. I have, however, lived in 4 different states in the past decade or so--Mississippi, Florida, Wisconsin, and finally back again in Illinois.

My life has been more or less average. I took some time off and did various menial jobs after high school before going to Joliet Junior College and getting my AA in graphic design in December of '96. I then spent a year at Mississippi State University before getting homesick and transferring to Northern Illinois University. One year there was enough to make me desperate for a serious change, both educationally and financially, so I left school to work for a hotel full time as a banquet administrator. I met my husband Tony and his then six year old daughter Brittany in DeKalb in 2000 and we married in October 2003. Much to the chagrin of his guy pals, he took my last name when we married, hence the lack of a new last name for me. Two weeks later we moved to Bradenton, FL and two weeks after that we discovered the wedding night had been very productive! My beautiful son Connor was born July 16, 2004. I became a stay at home mom and returned to college, changing majors to elementary education and attending the University of South Florida in Sarasota. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last and we separated in September of 2008. My son and I moved to Madison, WI for a brief seven months before I finally returned to the home territory. I reunited with my high school sweetheart in 2009 and we moved to Crete in 2011. We married in October of 2014 and I couldn't be happier!

What spare time?!?

By far my favorite memories are related to the European Tour with the choir in June of '89. There's nothing quite like spending 2 weeks on a bus with about 50 of your classmates acting like idiots while crossing the border between Austria and Germany multiple times. Some of the best parts definitely involved the fact that there was no legal drinking age in either country! I swear I won't tell the best stories to those who weren't there...or at least I'll try not to...

Mr. Stark, Mr. Byers, Mr. Kummer, Mr. Bartkus

Crazy Rock (long before it became a strip joint!)

I would probably be much happier than I was back then. I put far too much stock in what others thought and it took me entirely too long to realize that everyone else was just as full of it as I was! None of us were who everyone else thought we were and most of what happened to us back then really wasn't worth all the stress we put ourselves under. I completely forgot just to be a kid and have fun! Oh, well...that's what my 50's will be for. I look forward to the midlife crisis! Anyone got a Corvette they'd like to unload cheap?