"When we were both in school at Notre Dame, he took out an ad in the Observer asking if anyone wanted to carpool down to Texas. My sister was living there at the time, so I joined him and a few friends for the 20-hour ride. We had a lot in common--we both came from huge Notre Dame families, with siblings who had attended; we were both accounting majors. And that was how we met...while traveling!
"When we started Anthony Travel twenty-five years ago, we were uncertain at first. As we worked, we decided that our ultimate dream was to do Notre Dame travel. We were amazed that that dream was realized just a year later. Now we can give back to and be involved with the Notre Dame community through this work."

           "What advice would you give current Notre Dame students?"
"Be in the holy. Get in touch with your faith. Notre Dame is full of both amazing people and amazing places around campus. Go to the Grotto by yourself or with a friend. It doesn't matter what your faith is, if you're a believer or nonbeliever. Walk around the lakes. Celebrate together, through mass and through events. Of course sleep and homework are important, but Notre Dame is a holy place, and your time here may seem fleeting. So take a minute and look for the holy. Because it's here."

"My friends like to tell the story that I went to Notre Dame with my son, but there's of course more to it than that. My son-in-law was in graduate school here when I decided to take master's degree-level classes here at the Kroc Institute. I took them just to engage intellectually. When I was asked about it, I'd just say, 'I have three degrees already! What am I going to do with another one?'
"In 2013, I started a woodwork shop in South Bend from the ground up; last Christmas, we had a four-foot-long wood train at the White House. In this business, people call all the time asking, 'Is there any way you can...', and nine times out of ten, we can. The more noble reason that I started South Bend Woodworks was to create local jobs doing something I loved. The more selfish reason was that I wanted a job where I didn't have to be yelled at!"
            "Did your time working as a lawyer prepare you in any way for starting your own business?"
"I'm going to be honest with you: not at all!"

"It's not actually that hard to do! You just need the right kind of surface. I mostly set them up when work is slow. Then people who come in line are amazed, and we've got a talking point as they check out."

"I'm the second oldest of fourteen children, and the first set of twins. You want to hear a fun story? I was born on a bus, as was my brother. He came first, and then I did, and I was born totally blue. So my mother asked the bus driver to stop the bus so she could get off at a house. But I ended up just fine! They called me a 'blue baby.' And I'm still traveling now!
"I was 11 the first time one of my younger brothers called me Mom. At the time, it was terrible, because it meant he mistook me for our own mother. But it warms my heart now, because even though they live in Germany and I live here, my younger siblings still send me Mother's Day cards every year. I don't have any children, but I still get the cards on Mother's Day." 

"I'm not the typical Notre Dame story. I transferred to a different university after two years. It was in 1969, at the height of anti-Vietnam sentiments, and I was in the ROTC program here. Just having a military haircut made me stand out from the rest of the students. I felt out-of-place often: there were many students from the east coast here, and they were aggressive and smart and in-your-face. And here I was, this mild-mannered Midwest kid, trying to find my place. To top it all off, the drinking culture was too much for me. All my friends would go out to drink after football games, and I would go back to the library to study. Finally, after my sophomore year, I worked up the courage to ask my parents if I could transfer. I didn't start my first semester at my new school very well, and that was when I realized: you take yourself wherever you go. But my new school welcomed me with open arms, and I stayed and graduated and loved it. I still have allegiance to Notre Dame now; I visit campus, I donate, I have tickets to sports events. I just share my allegiance now. It took me some time after transferring to come to terms with the old Notre Dame and the changes it's experienced since I went to school here."

"I’m doing my senior thesis on mental illness, specifically on the campus community of Notre Dame. Very few people are comfortable talking about mental illness, which means that resources don’t get used. For my thesis, I’m collecting people’s stories to understand them. I want to understand the situation at Notre Dame, but I also want to share these stories and give a voice to those with mental illness. Various other college campuses have seen projects that created safe spaces. Notre Dame doesn’t have that yet. I want to help foster a climate that encourages people to talk about mental illness and educates peers to help connect individuals with the resources they need.

"I’m specifically focusing on working with informal, interpersonal relationship and peer support systems. There are formal systems in place, and structured programs…but some people don’t have time for it, or don’t prioritize it until they need it. But these support systems should be part of our daily dialogue, not just reactive. I feel like every person at Notre Dame has interacted with mental illness in some way, whether it’s personal, or a roommate, a friend, or someone down the hall. It can be really stressful for bystanders, too. And I want to empower bystanders so they know what to do, how to do it effectively, and how to foster a stronger and safer community.

"Right now, I’m starting with an online form to collect people’s stories. (Find the form here.) It’s completely anonymous. I just want to understand what people have gone through. And providing a place to share one’s story can be cathartic in a way. I hope there’ll be a response and we can get a dialogue going, so I can better understand the situation here and create something that’s valuable to this community in particular.

"Last semester…well, last semester sucked. I was depressed and had no clue what to do. I didn’t know how to talk to my friends, or what to tell them, or how to explain why I wasn’t leaving my room or going to classes anymore. And it becomes a hard thing to talk to your friends about. I love them, but I didn’t know how they’d react. So that’s why I feel, if we can talk about it more, it won’t be as big of an issue for when people are going through these situations. I want to develop something that’s sustainable, and valuable to use, that will last long after I graduate."

Seen in LaFun: Catholic graffiti.

"I proposed to her after we attended a basketball game in December. I was so nervous that I walked her around campus for a few hours: around the quads, to the Grotto, back to the main building. Finally, I said to myself, 'If you're gonna do it, do it now.' So I stopped right here, in front of the dome, and got down on one knee."

"My section of Zahm all dressed up and went to the dining hall at St. Mary's. We all wore silly things--hats, swimsuits, glasses--but I decided to wear my Po suit. I got a lot of hugs."