Every day, Tarleton State University students pass hundreds of faces around campus, and as John and Marily Considine can attest, sometimes those encounters bloom into something more.

The Considines were both students at Tarleton. From 1997 until 2001 they strived in many on campus activities including, for John, Plowboys and ROTC; for Marily, Texan Stars, Student Government Association, Press Club, Alumni Ambassadors, and staff writer for the J-TAC. They were also Texan Reps during their time at Tarleton.

A true Tarleton love story, the Texan Star and Plowboy were both engaged and married at Tarleton.

“My husband proposed to me right after our halftime performance at the homecoming game on October 16, 1999. We were also married on campus,” Mrs. Considine said. “We had our wedding on April 28, 2001 in the [Thompson] Student Center ballrooms.”

Now that they are alumni, Marily and John still attend many Tarleton events. According to Marily, the family wants to ultimately live near Tarleton, because that is the place that they can all call “home”. 

Marily said that she hopes her two children will attend Tarleton in the future. Both children, a 10-year-old daughter named Johnily and an 8-year-old son named Ryan, enjoy coming back to Tarleton and learning about its traditions.

“They don’t know what it is like to have a “hometown” like most children do,” Marily said. “We have taught them that Tarleton is where we think of as home.”

Both John and Marily still work closely with the Plowboy and Texan Star alumni associations.

“I am currently on the Tarleton Alumni Association Board of Directors,” Mrs. Considine said. “I am also currently planning the 40th reunion of the Texan Stars Dance Team. My husband is a member of the Plowboys Alumni Association.”

John, being in ROTC during his days at Tarleton, was commissioned to be in the Army not long after graduation. He is a combat engineer in the Army and is currently a Major, having been in the Army for 13 years.

The couple’s romance has not been free from hardship. On September 17, 2010, Marily was diagnosed with an aggressive estrogen positive stage 3 breast cancer.

“I had eight rounds of chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy, 33 rounds of radiation, and my ovaries removed,” Mrs. Considine said.

Although the Considines thought Marily was in remission, two years after her initial battle Marily found a lump under her arm on the same side that the cancer had appeared before.

“On March 17th of this year, I was diagnosed with cancer again,” Mrs. Considine said. “This time, it was in the lymph nodes under my arm.”

On March 28th Marily had a surgery called total axillary dissection to remove the lymph nodes under her arm; however, she does not yet know what stage the cancer is. 

“We were very saddened and shocked by both cancer diagnosis,” Mrs. Considine said. “I am young and healthy and have no family history of cancer, so this has been very difficult for our family to understand how I have gotten it twice and I am only in my 30s.”

With John being in the military, two kids at home, and now another round of cancer, Marily said that the hardest part is all of the uncertainty in life. As a military family, the Considines move often, and as a military wife battling cancer, Marily said that she worries about her husband being deployed again.

“I don’t know where we are going to live or if we will have to move during my treatments,” Mrs. Considine said. “It would be difficult to battle cancer if he was deployed, especially since we have two young children.”

John has been stationed in Fort Hood, Texas since 2007 and Marily has fought both cancer battles in Texas.

“When I was diagnosed the first time, my husband was actually working as the Assistant Professor of Military Science for the Tarleton ROTC program here at the central Texas campus,” Mrs. Considine said. “Then, in 2012, he was assigned to a unit on Fort Hood again.”

In 2012, Marily began working with military spouses who are also battling cancer, helping them cope and find helpful information. Because of her volunteer work with the organizations Fort Hood USO and Homes for our Troops, she was named the 2013 Fort Hood Military Spouse of the Year. She also served as a guest speaker and grand Marshall in 2013 for the local 4th of July parade in Belton.

“On May 12, 2013, our family’s story was also featured on NBC’s The Today Show,” Mrs. Considine added. 

“My children and I were flown up to New York City for the weekend to appear on the show.  My husband was deployed in Afghanistan at the time, but the show also was able to Skype him in so that he could speak and appear on the show as well via video.”

Last month, John was given a Tarleton Core Value coin at the basketball games in Allen, Texas. At a reception for alumni before the tournament, Tarleton President Dr. F. Dominic Dottavio presented John with the coin for all of the core values that Tarleton stands for, as recognition of his service to the military and his three tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“My husband has been deployed to Iraq two times and, in February of this year, he returned from his third deployment which was in Afghanistan,” Mrs. Considine explained.

Despite all of the hardships that they have been through, the Considines are keeping their hopes high.

“We have been very blessed by such wonderful support from our family, friends, our Tarleton family, and our military community,” Mrs. Considine said. “So many people have helped our family during both of these cancer battles and we couldn’t have done it without all of their love, support, and prayers.”