NEIGHBORING COUPLES CELEBRATE COMMON DATE FOR ANNIVERSARY

Beside being neighbors, three Cape Girardeau couples have a lot in common. They were all married on the same day, built homes on the same street, and their children all attend the same school.

Today, the three couples will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversaries.

"It's a milestone, that's for sure," said Jane Stahly, who, with her husband Joe, lives next door to David and Joan Goehring and Danny and Rose Conrad.

The three couples got married in separate ceremonies on Dec. 18, 1971. The Stahlys and Goehrings got married in Cape Girardeau and the Conrads tied the knot in Jackson. The ceremonies were within hours of each other.

The Conrads built a home on Yorktown Drive in 1987. The next year, the Stahlys and the Goehrings did the same.

Soon after they all moved in, another neighbor had a Christmas party, where the couples met and discovered some striking similarities in their lives.

"We were just talking about our anniversaries and discovered that they are all on the same day," said Joan Goehring. "But I don't think we realized that night that it was the same year."

During subsequent get-togethers, they discovered they were all married in the same year.

But Goehring said the similarities don't end there.

"Between the three of us, we have two fifth-graders, two seventh-graders and two tenth-graders," she said. "And all of our kids went to Alma Schrader."

Goehring said the three couples don't plan to celebrate together tonight. But they do get together for coffee and conversation once in a while, she said.

"We're good friends as well as neighbors. Any of us would do anything for the others," she said.

The couples are all in their 40s, Goehring said, adding that her husband's birthday is also today. All are Cape Girardeau natives except Danny Conrad, and all but Conrad attended Cape Central High School.

Joan Goehring said the coincidences in the couples' lives are amazing, right down to the family pets. "We all have a dog," she said.

They look at it as one of life's little ironies, but they don't get caught up in trying to be just like the other.

Goehring said she'd be proud to celebrate her 20th anniversary, even if she and her husband had to do it alone.

"Anybody being married in this day and age for 20 years is a big deal," she said. "Maybe in a couple of years, we'll have a party for the six of us."