Bee’s ‘Town Talk’ Rekindles Romance––

Kerri Cullinan & Matthew Garrett:

A Long Distance Love Story

By Shannon Hicks

Kerri Cullinan and Matthew Garrett met when she was 11, he was 12, and they were in the same gym class at a Texas middle school.

Today both are 20 years old, Kerri lives in Newtown, Matt is still living in Texas, they’re each attending college –– after three semesters at Southern Connecticut State University she’s now taking classes at Naugatuck Valley Community College and he’s getting ready to transfer from North Lake College in Irving, Texas, to the University of North Texas at Denton, where he will be a junior –– and they’re dating.

Thanks to Kerri’s hometown newspaper and a chance taken by Matt in January 2002, two former friends have found each other and have fallen in love. Matt recently visited Newtown for the second time in less than a year, and the young couple visited The Bee offices to share their story. They’re adorable together –– very comfortable with each other, even when they don’t fully agree on a subject, but full of smiles and a happiness that’s infectious. Theirs is the kind of story people wish for. It’s a long distance love story.

Kerri Cullinan’s family moved from Massachusetts to Texas when she was in fifth grade. A year later she and Matt met, and he eventually asked her to go to a sixth grade dance with him. As the two were walking out to the parking lot to get picked up after that dance, they shared a kiss. It was the first kiss for both of them.

A few weeks later Matt asked Kerri to be his girlfriend, and she said Yes.

Unfortunately the Cullinan family moved from Texas to Pennsylvania in January 1995. Matt and Kerri were able to remain friends then, and even still when the Cullinan family moved again in June 1997, this time to Newtown. They stayed in touch for a little while, until one night when they were on the phone and, Kerri said recently, “He said something and I didn’t like it and I hung up.”

Matt didn’t call her back that night, and the two didn’t speak for 3½ years.

Fast forward to last January. Kerri’s a freshman at SCSU and she gets a phone call from her mother, Joanne, who says she was looking at Town Talk, a link on The Newtown Bee’s website, “and she noticed something.”

Matt knew the Cullinans had moved to Newtown, but wasn’t sure they were still here. He took a chance and on January 25, 2002, posted the following message:

“I am just trying to find an old friend from middle school. She was from Coppell Texas and her name is Kerri Cullinan. If anyone knows her just tell her an old friend, Matt G., is just curious on how things are! Thanks.”

When her mother started reading the post a few days later, “I nearly fainted,” Kerri said.

Kerri got online and sent a reply to Matt. On February 7, Town Talk presented the following post:

“Matt, this is Kerri. My mother was online looking around and called me up at school … Thank you for thinking of me. I have been fine. Feel free to contact me if you would like.”

Matt says he wrote the email, but wasn’t sure what, if anything, would come of it so he tried to put it out of his mind.

“The funny thing was, I wrote it in late January and then almost forgot about it,” he said. “Then I thought about her again and within a few hours, that’s when she replied.”

The two began emailing and then talking again on a regular basis by the spring. Last July Matt purchased a ticket and flew for the first time, coming to Connecticut to visit Kerri.

“It was the first time seeing each other in eight years, but it was perfect. It was so comfortable,” Kerri said.

By November feelings were resurfacing, and for Christmas last year Kerri’s parents told her they would purchase plane tickets for her when she wanted to go to Texas.

Kerri went to see Matt in February, just in time for Valentine’s Day. The first time they went out he took her to The Oceanaire, “a nice seafood place in Dallas,” he said, and then back to their former middle school where they had shared their first kiss. After dancing under the stars, Matt showed Kerri the star he would always look at while he was thinking of her.

“That was my first Valentine’s Day date,” Matt shared.

Matt was in Newtown earlier this month and the visit was spent doing things with Kerri, of course, and her entire family. There was a graduation party for Matt Cullinan, who graduated from Newtown High School in June; there was a trip to New York City to see Chicago and another day at Yankee Stadium (it was the day David Wells got frustrated and threw his glove into the stands, and right there on the stadium screens –– and TV screens across the tri-state area –– was Matt and the rest of the group from Newtown). The first trip into the city was also a late birthday celebration for Kerri.

“We’ve been running around doing a lot of errands, but we’ve really just been taking it easy,” Kerri said recently.

“This is the first birthday we’ve shared and it’s been nice,” she added.

Matt still isn’t sure what made him look at The Bee’s website last year, but he’s obviously glad he did.

“I missed her,” he said. “I thought about her a lot. I dreamed about her.”