A Teenage Romance, Rekindled After Three Decades

It was the spring of 1981 in Louisiana. Liz Barnez was 16 and Lori Daigle was 17. They met while playing on competing high school sports teams. When they joined the all-star softball team that summer, their friendship blossomed into something more.

At StoryCorps in Fort Collins, Colorado, Liz and Lori sat down to reflect on their teenage romance, and how they reunited nearly 30 years later.

They married in 2015 after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. That was more than 30 years after their first kiss.

Top photo: Lori Daigle and Liz Barnez at StoryCorps in Fort Collins, Colorado. Photo by Jacqueline Van Meter for StoryCorps.
Middle photo: Liz Barnez and Lori Daigle in the summer of 1981. Photo courtesy of Lori Daigle.
Bottom photo: Robert Herman, Lori Daigle, Liz Barnez, and Haley Daigle, from left to right, at Liz Barnez and Lori Daigle’s wedding in 2015. Photo by Kris Harmon and courtesy of Lori Daigle.

Originally aired March 8, 2019, on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Ray Martinez

Ray Martinez remembers growing up in an orphanage until he was adopted at 5 years old. In the orphanage nothing belonged to him—not a toy nor a coat—but his new parents gave him a blue stocking cap and a little toy stuffed dog and after they passed away he discovered they always held on to those first things he ever owned.

Originally aired June 20, 2008, on NPR’s Morning Edition.