Neely Cassady had long been able to identify Nina Ponder on sight.
They had gone to the same small high school in Nashville, where everyone knew everyone's name. They had gone to separate community schools before the ninth grade, and although their families weren't close, they were at least acquainted.
The first time I saw my future spouse
He says: “She was pretty.”
She says: “I was in high school, but I wasn’t really impressed then, I guess.”
My advice for a long happy marriage
He says: “Have patience when you need to.”
She says: “Put God first. Let God be first in your home and in your marriage.”
But he was a senior when she was a freshman, and that made all the difference.
"A senior doesn't look at the freshmen very much," Neely says.
Both had graduated from high school by the time Neely gave Nina more than a glance and quickly decided he wanted to see her more often. He was running his family's feed and hatchery business on the town's Main Street then, and Nina worked at Scott's Variety store just down the road.
Nina's mother had a job as a nurse for a doctor whose practice was in that area, so she and Nina rode to work together each morning and back home again together in the afternoon.
They parked right across the street from Neely's store, and he started watching as Nina's mother turned down a side street to go to the doctor's office and Nina walked the other way to Scott's. He made note of the fact that at the end of each day, Nina arrived back at the car first and waited for her mother to return.
"When Nina would come back to the car first, she was kind of a sitting duck," he quips. "Sitting over there in the car by herself, she just looked lonesome."
Neely steeled his nerves and used Nina's idle time in the car as an opportunity to keep her company.
"He said he went up the street and made a U-turn and kind of lost his nerve and drove on down and made another U-turn and came back and that time he stopped and asked me to go see a movie with him," Nina says.
She hadn't had any inkling about his daily observation, so his very appearance was unexpected, but it was a pleasant surprise.
"I enjoyed him. He was a really nice fellow, a real gentleman. He was very kind and respectful. After that we started seeing each other quite often," she says.
They went to more movies, shared dinners and took turns going to each other's churches.
"We were both Baptist, so it wasn't that big of a deal," she says.
It was just three months later, as they sat next to each other in his car after watching some friends marry, that Neely asked Nina if they could start planning a wedding of their own.
They were married three months later, on Sept. 1, 1951, at the home of Dr. H.H. Holt, Nina's mother's employer.
Holt had a small airplane and there was a hangar behind his house. On Nina and Neely's wedding day, he offered to let them hide their car in there.
"That was so nobody could find it and mess it up for us," Nina says. "We did that and several of our friends -- Neely's friends -- came down looking for it and they asked Dr. Holt if he knew where the car was and if it was there. Dr. Holt could be real gruff and he said, 'If it is, you're not to bother it,' and they left."
They were glad to have a clean car for their honeymoon.
"We went all the way to Mena," she says.
Nina and Neely have lived in Nashville throughout their marriage, except during Neely's brief stint in the U.S. Army, when they lived in Fort Smith and Lawton, Okla.
Neely eventually expanded his family's business and facilitated its association and eventual merger with Tyson Foods. In 1993, he was elected to the state Senate, and during the 14 years he served, she traveled to Little Rock with him for each general legislative session and worked as a bill clerk in the Senate chamber.
"He wanted me with him," she says. "And I wanted to be with him. I enjoyed that because I got to know all that was going on and everything, but I really did it strictly because we wanted to be together."
Neely retired recently from Cassady Investments.
Neely and Nina raised three children -- Pam Reeder of Mountain Home, Tony Cassady of Little Rock and Mark Cassady of Nashville. They also have four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Their 63 years of marriage have been charmed, rich with precious memories of their family.
"I can remember a lot and there have been so many that I can't remember them all," he says.
Nina couldn't agree more.
"It does not seem like we've been married that long," she says. "They've been wonderful years. We've really been blessed."
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High Profile on 09/14/2014