Lakewood Ranch man’s marriage proposal touches many

A very sweet and touching surprise marriage proposal — made by a Lakewood Ranch man who communicates with his eyes — is continuing to touch lives in a deep way after nearly two weeks.

“He has been on my mind a lot,” said Andrea Vella, the director of the Southeast High School Marching Noles, whose band members played a key role in the man’s surprise proposal that received a “yes” response. “He can’t talk. He can only communicate with his mind. I can’t stop thinking about him.”

The man Vellas is talking about is Kevin Swan, a class of 2000 Southeast High School graduate, who is the founder and chief executive officer of A Life Story Foundation — alifestoryfoundation.org — an organization he created to raise awareness and find a cure for amyotropic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS, the disease he has had since 2012.

ALS has progressively attacked the nerve cells in Swan’s brain and his spinal cord, leaving his muscles weak and malnourished.

Swan can no longer walk or talk or use his hands to do the simple things most of us take for granted, like putting on a shirt or socks. He uses his eyes to text, using a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 computer and software through a company called Tobii.

His mind, however, is sharp and his friends say he has not let his condition stop him from wanting to seize every moment of his life, which is why he made the decision to propose, on Oct. 28, to his girlfriend Shaina Frisch, in a most complex and brilliant fashion.

Several months ago, Swan, who was an under-sized wide receiver for the Noles, texted school athletic trainer and physical education coach John Karl, who was a teacher at the school when Swan was a student athlete.

“Hey, Coach,” Swan wrote. “I need a marching band so I can propose to my girlfriend.”

The surprised Karl answered back, “Uh, OK.”

Swan enlisted the help of Vella, who, herself, graduated from Southeast High in 2003. She was a freshman in the band when Swan was on the school football team.

“All the credit for this goes to Andrea,” Karl said Wednesday. “My only role in this was to tell Andrea. She took the ball and ran with it.”

75 students in on the surprise

On a rainy Saturday, the Southeast High Marching Noles Band and Nolettes Dance Team, a combined 75 members strong, took two school buses — thanks to Southeast Principal Rosa Faison — to the Mandeville Beer Garden in Sarasota where Frisch, a diehard Ohio State University football fan, thought she was at a restaurant-sponsored “watch party” for the OSU-Penn State game with Swan and other friends who were in on the surprise, including Karl.

The buses parked nearby and the musicians and dancers marched up the street toward the beer garden shortly before 4 p.m.

“You could hear the Nole drums,” Karl said. “When they reached the restaurant, Kevin came outside in his wheelchair, someone opened an umbrella for him and the band gathered in an open area in the rain.”

They began playing Ohio State’s “Buckeye Battle Cry,” a piece that had been arranged by Southeast High junior Brendan Guyre, and Shaina was clapping and cheering. She still didn’t realize exactly what was happening.

The moment she said ‘yes’

But then the band broke into the couple’s special song, “Hey, Soul Sister,” during which the Nolettes, working off original choreography by Southeast High sophomore Alexa Mendoza, held up letters that spelled out “Will You Marry Me?”

“The sign was in Ohio State colors. Andrea didn’t miss a beat. Shaina started kissing and hugging Kevin,” Karl said. “Someone had the ring and presented it.”

“With the exception of the rain, the plan worked perfectly,” Swan said via email Wednesday. “I spent a couple of months planning the day, all via email. The key was having the great people at Mandeville create a fake Ohio State watch party. It really made the set-up look legit. Obviously, knowing how everything was going to unfold, I was anxious. But the moment she said ‘yes’ made everything else fade away.”

“I can’t say enough about the students,” Swan added. “Andrea was a miracle worker. I had never met her, and here she was helping me create this incredible moment. I couldn’t believe how much the band members genuinely cared about the day. And Coach Karl, what a great guy. Always has been.”

Swan describes his wife-to-be as “witty, smart and always so supportive.”

The couple plans on getting married early fall next year, Swan said.

“I’m doing really well,” Swan added. “I had respiratory failure in August and decided to get a tracheotomy. After 10 days in ICU, and another month recovering at home, I feel great.”

Swan said his foundation is also doing well.

“I do think we are moving the needle every day,” Swan said. “Not only do we fund research through a biotech firm in Cambridge, Mass., we’ve produced award-winning stories that have received millions of views online.”

“Karl, like Vella, continues to be touched by the proposal.

“The week after it happened I went and talked to the band,” Karl said. “I told them what they did was the nicest thing I had seen in my 28 years at Southeast High. I told them how proud of them I was. They had given up five or six hours of a Saturday to put someone else in front of themselves, which, I told them, is a very valuable lesson.”

Vella was so touched by the proposal that she felt it was important to talk to her students about it months before.

“The whole month leading up to it was emotional,” Vella said Monday. “I wanted our students to grasp why we were doing this. We talked about ALS and we wrote about it and had very deep discussions. While we were at the proposal a lot of emotions that had built up spilled out. I think our students finally grasped how important this was to Kevin, to his friends, his fiance and Coach Karl.”

This story was originally published November 8, 2017 at 5:30 PM with the headline "Lakewood Ranch man’s marriage proposal touches many."