Memorial Union memories

When Jason Bosch proposed to his girlfriend Kristen, in 2021, he chose a location he adored – Emporia State University’s Memorial Union, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2025. More specifically, the old Buzzcotti coffee shop.

Jason and Kristen’s story quite literally is intertwined with the Union. When the former ESU employees met several years earlier, Jason was the Memorial Union’s director; Kristen worked in the Union as an academic advisor. They dated briefly before, as Jason recalls, “it sort of just fizzled out.” Months went by. But one morning the following spring, happenstance found Jason and Kristen in the same place – waiting in line for coffee at Buzzcotti – at the same time. “We hadn’t been talking much,” he admits, “but we just sort of started striking up a conversation.”

The gloriously inevitable happened. Their dating resumed, their relationship strengthened, and by the summer of 2021 after both had relocated to Wichita, Jason wanted to propose. But where should he pop the question?

Jason knew the perfect spot.

With the help of former ESU Dean of Students Lynn Hobson, Jason devised an elaborate ruse to get Kristen back to ESU’s campus. The trick was convincing Kristen that he needed to pick something up from Lynn and getting her to come inside by telling her Lynn wanted to say hello.

The gambit worked – sort of. Inside the Union, Jason pulled out his phone as they approached Buzzcotti and played a romantic song. Kristen’s 9-year-old daughter, Sophia, who was oblivious to Jason’s plans, didn’t approve of the song and turned it off. Jason, flustered momentarily, regrouped. “No, Sophia, I want to hear this song,” he told her.

Again he pushed play, then went down on one knee, offered Kristen a ring and proposed. Her answer: yes. Married in October 2023 in Wichita, Jason and Kristen recently celebrated their one-year anniversary.

“The reason I chose Buzzcotti is not just because that's where we started talking again, but throughout our relationship she would always say we wouldn't be back together if we hadn't started talking that day,” he said. “So I knew that's the place to pop the question.”