Chouinard: A fourth generation Marquette family

By Izzy Fonfara Drewel isabella.fonfaradrewel@marquette.edu

The couple met as members of the pep band back in the ‘90s

By Kimberly Cook kimberly.cook@marquette.edu

Charlie Chouinard’s blood ran blue and gold from the moment he was born. While he may not have known that until he stepped onto Marquette’s campus during his junior year of high school for his tour of the university, he knew right then that it was true.

“I felt at home and I kind of knew that that’s where I wanted to be for the next four, or in my case six years,” Charlie, a firstyear in the College of Health Sciences, said.

Charlie is a fourth-generation student on his father’s side, following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Richard Panlener — a 1934 Marquette graduate and eventual engineering professor at the university — his grandmother and both of his parents, Paul and Amy Chouinard.

Paul (Class of 1996) and Amy (Class of 1997) became acquainted as members of the Marquette band when Paul, a junior at the time, stood behind his future wife in the pep band section during Marquette basketball games.

“She (Amy) got to put up with me blasting my trumpet in her ear for three years,” Paul said. A trumpet player and flute player, respectfully, it wasn’t until the two shared a car ride back to the Twin Cities for winter break that their friendship started on its collision course to become something more.

“And I guess after that,” Amy

I’ve always been someone with a big heart. My mother said it to me, and my grandmother, and my dad and everyone. I love large and I love lots and I love hard. Sometimes this heart gets me in trouble.

I think sometimes our world tries to narrow love down too much, trying to make it into meaning one thing. That is not what love is. Love is through family, through friends, through time and space, through a genuine connection to something that resonates so deeply within you it echoes in your soul. We can love in so many ways at so many times.

We can’t label all the ways to love, but people have tried. The Ancient Greeks created seven words. Seven loves that we can find in our lifetime. Philautia meaning self, philia for friends, storge for family, agape meaning selfless love, pragma being committed love, eros for romance and finally, ludus for playfulness.

My dedicated team and I will do our best to communicate these to you through the pages.

As you read our words, I want you to think about your life and please see all the little ways you love. Open your hearts so you can love large and lots and hard.

This issue is my gift to you, my way of showing you that love is not just one thing. It has forms and connections, intersecting paths and aisles. From my big heart to yours, this is “Local Love.” See FOURTH page 2A