‘I Told Her … She Was My Partner for Life, and Asked Her to Marry Me’

BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times CHERYL AND MICHAEL LONG Sr. Live: Pleasant Grove, AL Married: Dec. 21, 1979 Met: April 1977 in Cheryl’s dormitory on campus at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Ala.  Michael was a year ahead of Cheryl’s graduating class. “We met through a mutual friend. Mike came [to my dormitory] to visit my friend and I came down to tell him that she wasn’t there, and he struck up a conversation with me,” Cheryl said. “I had seen him around on campus and I knew who he was because when you go off to college you find out who your home boys and girls [fellow students from your hometown] are, and he was in the band and I was a fan of the band and would watch then practice and my girlfriend [their mutual friend] had pointed him out to me…” However, Cheryl recalls a brief meeting between her and Michael while in high school in Birmingham at Ramsay High School, and Wenonah High School, respectively. Mike did not recall the encounter, but once they crossed paths at Alabama State University, “Cheryl caught my eye. She was beautiful and I wanted to take...