On the night of September 15, senior NaVon Richmond asked girlfriend Maria Higby to be his homecoming date amidst her candle-lit backyard.

“I had candles that led from her stairs,” Richmond said. “It led all the way [from] her back patio to a chair with the poster hanging on it and all of her favorite candy surrounding it.”

Though Richmond and Higby had been official for a day before their one month anniversary at the date of the proposal, Richmond had been planning the proposal quite a while beforehand.

“It took quite some planning,” Richmond said. “I had to write out what all I needed, make sure that Maria wouldn’t be home, and get her parents involved to avoid suspicion.”

After taking these precautions, Richmond and friends Morgan Susek and Callie Black set out to create the perfect proposal. Eventually, he found a poster from Pinterest with the words of a country song written on it. Remembering how much Higby loves country music, he chose to set up his own modification of the proposal while Higby was away.

“We went to see ‘It Two’,” senior Maria Higby said. “We got back to my house after the movie around 9 so it was dark outside. We talked to my mom and dad for a few minutes and then Na’von led me to my stairs.”

And there, Higby was welcomed with Richmond’s poster. 

“It made me so happy! I could tell he put in a lot of thought and that means so much to me,” Higby said.

However, this is not the first of Richmond’s sentimental gestures. They have been dating since this summer.