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Durango man proposes to girlfriend at Snowdown

Couple engaged at Hill Stompers show
Dan Howe, right, proposes to Amanda Champany, left, on Friday during a Snowdown event in Durango.

Snowdown understandably has its hazy moments, but for one Durango couple, this year’s Snowdown is one they’ll never forget.

On Friday, Dan Howe, 35, had it all planned out.

Howe and his girlfriend, Amanda Champany, 37, have dated four years, and Howe said the time had come to make it permanent.

“We didn’t see the appeal of marriage until this year when the government said all people can be married,” Howe said. “I talked to her parents over Christmas, bought a ring and looked at what we could do.

“And Snowdown just seemed like a perfect time.”

Howe arranged for the Hill Stompers, Champany’s favorite band, to play the Ghostbusters theme song on Friday night at Carver’s Brewing Co., knowing the couple would be dressed as Slimer and a Ghostbuster.

Champany was called up during the song, at which point the band stopped and switched to “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Howe got down on one knee and proposed, surrounded by a room full of friends.

“I wasn’t nervous,” Howe said. “Everyone else was.”

She said yes.

“I was totally surprised,” Champany said. “I assumed at some point we were going to get engaged, but I had no idea anything was happening that night other than see the Hill Stompers.”

Champany said she met Howe by a stroke of luck. She was living in Korea, and moved back to Farmington to be near family.

“It’s really hard to meet any interesting young people in Farmington, so I went back to Korea to visit friends,” Champany said. “They were the ones that said, ‘Oh, we have friends in Durango,’ and they introduced us through Facebook.”

Champany and Howe, who just completed their fifth Snowdown together, haven’t set a date for their wedding.

“We might move out of the country and teach abroad for a couple years,” Champany said. “That might change whether we get married sooner or later.”

jromeo@durangoherald.com



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