Kelly (Herndon) and Arne Scholz, 2014
“Participating in a (sister city) exchange can be life-changing,” Arne tells his students. He should know. Arne, a teacher at the Voss-Schule in Eutin, was the chaperone for the visiting student exchange to Lawrence in September 2013. It was in this role that he met Kelly, then Chair of the Lawrence Sister Cities Advisory Board, at a welcome party at the Union Pacific Depot in Lawrence.
“I had heard about her from Martin Vollertsen [chair of “Freunde von Lawrence”] in Eutin, but he never described her in any way. He just said, ‘Oh man, she gets stuff done; she is a power Frau,’” Arne explained. “In my mind’s eye, I pictured (her as a) mid-50s matron on the big side. But this beautiful young lady came up and introduced herself. I was pleasantly surprised!”
Kelly described how things started to click during a gathering with friends, “I have a boat, the weather was nice. Why don’t we have a picnic on the lake?” Kelly thought. “We started doing things together. The window at that time was pretty short. You couldn’t sit on it for any length of time, because it would have been a missed opportunity.”
“Our first official date was September 23, 2013. I proposed to her on the 5th or 6th (depending on which time zone) of March 2014,” Arne stated. “If you’re old like me…I was 43, you don’t want to miss a single day. No time to lose.”
Arne informed the Eutin school system he would not return in the fall of 2014 and immediately started the immigration process.
The announcement of their proposal was met with mixed reviews. Arne’s parents were already certain Arne was in love and happy for him. But Kelly’s two teenage girls from a previous marriage were initially less than thrilled.
“I had to wait two weeks after the engagement to tell anybody because I wanted to tell the girls when we were together first,” Kelly stated. “The girls were not as excited as I was, to put it mildly. I think they were in a bit of shock with the news that also affected them, and mad about the prospect of a man who was not much more than a stranger to them moving into their home.”
The shock and anger lasted about a day. “Now, both are really happy and appreciate Arne for the peace and calm he brings to the family,” Kelly explained. “For a blended family, we have it really, really good.”
Kelly and Arne married on October 24, 2014 in Hawaii, on the island of Kauai, with just 13 days left on his fiancé visa.
“We wanted it to be a family wedding,” Arne said. “Family is more important than a lot of friends and a party.” So, 13 members of their families went to Hawaii.
“It was a nice vacation for the family,” Kelly explained. “A wedding just happened to happen!”
Arne and Kelly live in Lawrence. Arne teaches German at Lawrence High School, and has chaperoned the last five Lawrence student exchanges with Eutin. Kelly works for a pharmaceutical company from home, and is a Board Member for Sister Cities Lawrence. Neither considered moving to Germany.
Arne explained, “One, Kelly’s girls were in 9th and 7th grade, and it just wouldn’t be right to uproot them. And two, ever since I went to school at Penn State, I wanted to live in the U.S. I just hit the jackpot!”
Transcontinental relationships can be trying and require some sacrifice.
Arne suggested a key component is communication. “Stay in touch. Use technology to stay in touch, but get to know the other’s world, their family, their daily life,” he said. “And, if you move to the other country, don’t burn bridges.”
“No matter which way you do it -where you end up living- someone is leaving one life behind for something else,” Kelly concluded. “I never want to take for granted the sacrifices he made to be here with us.”
