BILLBOARD SELLS MARRIAGE PROPOSAL; MAN SAYS HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW ELSE TO POP QUESTION

Nikki Dirnberger and Edward G. Landewee had talked about getting married someday, but first she was concentrating on graduating from college in December. In fact, while driving with him out Route K a few days ago she was talking too intently about school to notice the billboard that reads "Nikki will you marry me? Ed."

Making an excuse about needing gas, Landewee turned back toward town to give her another chance.

As they passed the billboard again he slowed some and Dirnberger soon started crying. "I didn't have much to say. I knew it was me," she recalled. "But it was hard to think."

Pulling to the side of the road, he asked what she thought.

"Yes, I will" was what she thought.

Landewee had that "Yes" put on the billboard a few days later.

He put the billboard up April 1 but it was no joke. He used to hang billboards for his employer, Drury Southwest. The idea occurred to him, he said, because "I didn't know how I was going to propose to her."

He didn't consider the billboard his actual proposal, though. They were both farm kids, so he proposed in a pontoon boat on a pond.

"I did the official one on one knee," he said.

Dirnberger is almost 23 and from Kelso, Landewee is 26 and from Scott City. They grew up only minutes from each other and went to the same grade school. But he attended Notre Dame High School and she went to Scott City High School.

After Dirnberger turned 21, she began running into him at the Kelso Country Club. Then her brother invited Landewee to a rodeo, and she was there. They had their first date, a comedy night at Jeremiah's, the following week.

They have been dating a little over a year and a half. His sisters-in-law had bet he would ask her at Christmas. Tantalizingly, he did get her a ring for Christmas. "Everybody was wondering if it was an engagement ring," he said. "I just got her a nice ring."

Dirnberger did expect the question to come eventually, just not so soon. He decided not to wait. "He just thought we could both handle planning for a wedding," she said.

She is getting a degree in child development and wants to teach prekindergartners. A year from now they'll get married in a big wedding. "We both come from pretty big families," she says.

As proposals go, she gives this one an A for romance.

"I think it was very creative," she said. "He did good."