LATHROP – “What does a guy like me have to do in order to be able to get a girl like that?”

Whatever it was, aspiring Lathrop Elementary School educator Chris Correia did it right – proofed when he stripped off his warm-up jacket in front of a school assembly, dropped to a knee in front of fiancée Kelly Poulos, and asked her to marry him. 

She said yes. 

“I’m proud of him,” said his former teacher Scott Niendorf while choking back tears. “My goal is to be able to see all of my students go on and be able to do these things and…it’s just special. This is why I do it.”

Friday’s plan was anything but simple – for the last six months Correia has been planning a way to get his students, his friends and his family involved in a public proposal to the girl that he fell in love with on July 3, 2009. And that meant swearing certain people on campus to secrecy since Poulos also works on the campus. 

The elaborate ruse called for the traditional “Fiesta Friday” monthly assembly where students are recognized for their adherence to the school’s pillar of character, but took a turn at the end when a word scramble game became much intricate. Eventually all of Correia’s friends came out in a hallway and held up cards, and broke the standard script – talking about Poulos, who had been called up at “random” to unscramble the word. When everything was assembled it spelled “Will You Marry Me Kelly?”

Correia took off a warmup jacket to reveal a bowtie and tuxedo vest, grabbed a bouquet of flowers and a box that contained an engagement ring. As audible gasps could be heard, he walked across the room and got down on one knee in front of her. 

She nodded her head. 

“This is something that I’ve wanted to do since December, so it’s been months in the works – I just didn’t want it to be cliché,” he said. “I love her with all of my heart and I know that she’s the person I want to spend the rest of my life with and I wanted these people to be a part of this special moment with us.”

Correia was just recently accepted to Stanislaus State where he plans on pursuing education as his career – hoping to follow in the footsteps of Lathrop Elementary Principal David Silveira. 

“One of the things that we asked the students up there today was whether they had a role model and one of them said that they didn’t,” Silveira said. “Chris – that’s a good place to start right there because he’s showing them that if he can do it then they can do it too.”