LEWISTON – Dan Philbrick was a junior at Edward Little High School in 1984 when another junior caught his eye.

The girl who turned out to be his future wife was 16, like him.

They were in the same home room, same first period and same algebra class. Dan thought Lyn Moors was attractive and had beautiful eyes.

He was nervous. While she was in front of her locker, he worked up the courage to ask her to dinner and a movie.

“She said, ‘Sure,'” Dan recalled at Lewiston-Auburn College, where both work today.

“It was our first date with anyone,” Lyn recalled.

He remembers where they went: the Lisbon Street Pizza Hut. They saw Mel Brooks’ “To Be or Not To Be.”

Dan said the movie wasn’t good. The date was.

He hasn’t asked anyone else out since.

They’ve remained a couple, dating through high school and college. She enrolled at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, he at Daniel Webster in Nashua, N.H.

But Dan missed Lyn so much that he dropped out and enrolled at USM.

They were married on May 26, 1990, and still celebrate their “first date anniversary” every Jan. 13.

They both consider their marriage unusual in that they rarely argue. “That’s not to say we agree on everything, but we talk about things,” he said. “We can disagree about things in a nice way.”

It’s important to treat each other with respect and consideration, Lyn said. That’s what they try to teach their daughters, Kelsey and Katie, ages 13 and 10.

Around the house, respect gets translated to working together and taking turns with chores. They’ve settled into a pattern that gets the work done in an agreeable way. He mows the lawn. She trims and carts away grass cuttings. He cooks. She cleans up.

She’s not a morning person, so he gets the kids going in the morning. She does bedtime duty. He takes care of the family computers. She’s in charge of paying bills.

They like working at the same place. It’s convenient, but it doesn’t give them much more together time because they have different careers. She’s the college’s bookstore manager. He’s the media and technology specialist.

“We don’t even eat lunch together, except on Fridays,” she said. “We’re busy, and we’re very respectful of each other’s independence.”

Both said they appreciate what they have in the other.

“We don’t know what would happen if one of us suddenly were to go away,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone that would put up with me and be as compatible. I’ve met a lot of people, and never met anybody like her.”

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