The Invisible String

When Liz Martin ‘82 first noticed Bill Armstrong ‘82 at SMU in fall 1978, it wasn’t love at first sight. Sitting in the front row of geology 101 with curly, blonde hair, Bill Armstrong looked exactly like Liz’s recent ex-boyfriend. It was a problem from the get go, but he kept showing up in her social circle.

When Liz pledged Pi Beta Phi, she found out that Bill’s sister was a member of the sorority. As a resident in Peyton Hall her sophomore year, Liz discovered her suitemate was dating Bill.

“One night, when the two of them were out, I told my roommate and our other suitemate, ‘I’m going to date Bill Armstrong,’” Liz said. “They were like ‘Wait, the guy that’s out with our suitemate?’ and I said ‘Yep, I just know it’s going to happen.”

And it did. Their sophomore year, Liz and Bill became best friends. They spent time in the library studying geology together, and class field trips brought them closer together.

“We spent a lot of time together, driving five hours to the Arbuckle Mountains,” Bill said. “You spend the night in tents and sleeping bags, seeing them without makeup. “It’s 105 degrees, and you come back all sweaty and gross. You get to know people really well.”

As their junior year began, Bill was still dating the suitemate Liz lived with, but the two were drifting apart. Bill drifted all the way to study abroad in Japan and his girlfriend transferred to nursing school in Arkansas.

“By this time, I was falling in love with my best friend,” Bill said.

Liz, along with the rest of their group of friends back at SMU, exchanged cassette tapes with Bill while he was in Japan. Bill said he listened to the tapes on the bullet train, hearing all about the 1980 Pony Express season of SMU football.

“We would talk, like you were writing a letter,” Bill said. “Obviously, there’s lots to do in Japan. But you’re a little bit lonely.”

In the summer before their senior year, geology field camp was intense. With six days a week, all-nighters and studying, Bill and Liz supported each other and their friend group.

By July 1981, Bill had broken up with his girlfriend, Liz’s former suitemate.

“I was like, ‘Okay, there’s hope. This is my moment,’” Liz said.

“I should have done it two years earlier,” Bill said.

As the fall semester of their senior year began, Bill enjoyed the single life while Liz waited patiently. One night after a party, Bill skipped class the next morning – his first time ever ditching.

“He called me, and I yelled at him. I’m like ‘Oh my God, how could you do that?’” Liz said. “he said, ‘Well, I’m calling to see if you’ll go to the Homecoming.’ It took me yelling at him to get an official date.”

Although it took years, Bill and Liz Armstrong have been inseparable since an invisible string of friendship tied them together. They married in 1984 and have two children, Lindsey ‘10 and Leigh ‘11, who are also SMU alumni.

“There’s this old expression: ‘You’re never so rich that you can’t afford a new friend,’” Bill said. “Right outside of Umphrey Lee, there’s this bench that says ‘Meet a friend bench.’ Sometimes I’d just sit there and Liz would say, ‘What are you doing?’ and I’d say I was just trying to meet a friend.”

Bill and Liz Armstrong are still visible on the Hilltop, literally. Their name adorns the Armstrong Fieldhouse, the dean of Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences is called the Elisabeth Martin Armstrong Dean and their generosity has touched many other places on campus.

From Art Class to “I Do”

When Jeremy Pope-Levison ’19 walked into his “Art in the World” class, he saw Miranda Helm ’19. As a transfer student, Jeremy was still finding his footing in Meadows. Little did he know that Miranda would become a constant in his life, guiding him past his sophomore year in 2017.

Miranda and Jeremy developed their daily routine like clockwork. Daily lunches at Arnold Commons, perfecting their skills in the Owen Fine Arts Center and studying in the Hamon Arts Library.

It wasn’t official between the pair until their first date at a classic spot in Snider Plaza.

“Our first date was at East Hampton Sandwich Co.,” Jeremy said. “I walked her back to Lloyd Commons and told her I was ready to date. She was, too, so we knew it was perfect.”

The pair spent late nights in Meadows, creating works of art for their classes. While Jeremy worked in the dark room, he observed Miranda in the art studio.

“She was a studio art major, painting, drawing and doing new media,” Jeremy said. “She just kind of had her hand in everything.”

Jeremy and Miranda also loved to sit on the grassy hill in Ford Stadium to watch football games, where students would slide down on pizza boxes and get their energy out.

After they graduated in 2019, Jeremy and Miranda stayed together in the DFW area. Jeremy worked in Fort Worth and proposed at the Fort Worth Modern Museum of Art on Sept. 9, 2021. It felt like a natural continuation of the creative bond they had first discovered at SMU, he said.

From classrooms and studios to galleries and museums, art had always been at the center of their story. It’s shaped not only their work, but also the life they’ve build side by side.

Love on McFarlin

For Paige Slates ‘92, college began with the Greek system. She pledged Pi Beta Phi at the University of Arkansas, even living in the same room her mother once did. But a trip to Dallas in 1989 for a fraternity party at SMU changed everything.

She came down with her best friend, and as the two girls approached the door at 3459 McFarlin Boulevard, John Slates ‘92 answered the door.

That meeting sparked the start of a relationship that would eventually bring Paige to SMU in her junior year.

“For me to transfer, I had to pass an astronomy class,” Paige said. “John came to Fayetteville to help me study for the final. He was like, ‘You have got to stay focused, we’ve got to make this happen.’ He was very supportive of me getting into SMU.”

As her junior year began at SMU, Paige and John spent time together at familiar SMU spots: the Sigma Chi house, the Green Elephant and the 7-Eleven on Hillcrest. They spent nights out, studying and running to 7-Eleven for Slurpees.

After Paige performed a song at the annual Celebration of Lights, John gave her his Sigma Chi pin. For such a tender moment in their relationship, it was heartwarming for Paige’s son to experience the same.

“My son is engaged, and they’re getting married in December at Highland Park Methodist,” Paige said. “They’re going to walk across the Boulevard with those lit trees, just like how John and I would walk along together, too.”

After graduation, Paige went to Los Angeles to pursue a career in broadcasting. Meanwhile, John headed for Washington, D.C. They said a tearful goodbye at his apartment on McFarlin Boulevard, as they knew their time together was coming to a close.

“For both our road trips, unknowingly, we both pulled into 7-Eleven to get Slurpees,” Paige said. “We just started bawling again, but it was symbolic for us.”

Eventually, their paths came back together in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a press secretary on Capitol Hill and he studied law. They later returned to Dallas, never straying far from the places that first shaped their story.

“We live on Cornell, about a half mile radius from our entire relationship and life together,” Paige said.

Editor’s note: Liz Armstrong’s maiden name was initially printed as “Cooper,” however her maiden name is Martin and has been corrected.