ELIZABETH BALIS/Arizona Daily Wildcat Flo Fanning and her husband Harry Fanning have lunch at the CafŽ Sonora Nov. 6. The couple met at the UA and have been married for almost 50 years.

Fifty years ago today, Harry Fanning saw his future wife, Flo, walk down the stairs of the old library, now the Arizona State Museum.

"I saw her and (her friend) coming down the staircase," Harry said. "I asked where she was from, and it was Hawaii."

Harry and Flo were married five months later, and after graduating from the UA, they traveled around the world, looking for job opportunities.

But no matter where they were in the world, they always tried to return to the steps of the building where they first met on Nov. 14 in order to reenact their first encounter.

Today is the last day they will ever do that.

Splitting their time between Tucson and Hawaii for the last 30 years, the couple has decided due to health reasons to give up their Tucson home for the tropical islands of Hawaii.

As Flo and Harry sat together at their favorite lunch spot, CafŽ Sonora, they reminisced about life in Tucson and at the UA.

"We're really going to miss coming to the U," Flo said.

"But everything in life has a reason, a logical reason," Harry added.

Harry said that like his move to Hawaii, even his marriage seemed destined to happen.

"Age 16 in Riverhead, N.Y., I asked myself where my future wife was, I spun the globe 3 times and all 3 times it came out Hawaii," Harry said. "I've always had these premonitions."

When the two met, Flo was a 21-year-old graduate student from Hawaii who was finishing up her master's degree. Harry was a 22-year-old freshman who had arrived at the UA after serving in the Air Force.

Harry and Flo, who is of Japanese decent, had to travel to New Mexico to marry on April 17, 1954, because Arizona had a law forbidding blacks and Asians from marrying Caucasians, Harry said.

"We lived for a time in Polo Village," said Harry. "That's how far back we go; that is where the (UMC) is now."

They say they not only fell in love with each other, but they also fell in love with the UA campus.

They eat lunch at CafŽ Sonora almost everyday.

"We do like the people here at the cafŽ or on campus," said Harry. "That's something that hasn't changed."

Their friend Lupita Lopez, who is a manager at CafŽ Sonora, always greets them and speaks to them as if she has known them forever.

"We're having Thanksgiving dinner with her and her family in Nogales," Harry said.

As much as the Fannings enjoy the new buildings and the changes that have occurred on campus, they still can't help but think about how it was.

"The union doesn't have the character the old one did," said Harry.

"But then again most modern buildings don't have any; we like the old CafŽ Sonora building better," Flo said.

Neither of them have let go of their UA roots, where they both received degrees from and where they also made so many friends, including Richard P. Harvill, former university president.

The couple will miss the UA, but they are looking forward to going to Hawaii, where they can live near their pregnant daughter.

"One of my three daughters lives right across the street with our grandchildren," said Harry. "They're always surfing; that is what those kids love to do," said Flo.

With grandchildren ranging from 1 to 18 years old and a newborn on the way, these proud grandparents can't emphasize enough what their daughters and family has meant to them.

"We took six years to have a family; our greatest thrill was the birth of our daughters," Harry said.