Frankie, 68, and JoAnn Smith, 61, of Huntingdon have been chosen as the Carroll County News-Leader’s Valentine Sweetheart Couple for 2020.
As the chosen couple, they will receive a number of prizes that include: Leah’s Downtown Diner in McKenzie – $10.00 gift certificate, McKenzie City Florist – bouquet, Bill’s Flowers of Huntingdon – bouquet, Lovie’s of Huntingdon – candle, and My Favorite Things of Paris – $20 gift certificate
The couple has been married for 32 years and reside at 1310 Buena Vista Road. They were married April 22, 1987 at the courthouse in Huntingdon by then Circuit Court Clerk Carolyn Lutz. JoAnn’s sister, Pamela Parker, was their witness.
It was her first time to marry at age 29 and it was his second time. She grew up in Huntingdon and he was raised in Trezevant.
They had known each other long before they started dating. They dated a couple of years before they married.
“We just hit it off,” said JoAnn. “We attended a lot of music concerts while we were dating.” Among them were those of Jennifer Holiday and Gladys Knight and the Phipps.
They have four children: Norval (Tequela) Smith of Murfreesboro, who works in Nashville’s Traffic Department; Sharri Smith of Houston, Texas, who is employed in the Insurance Dept. of United Health Care; Brittany Smith of Huntingdon, who is a correction officer with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Dept., and Tanya Choyce of Appolla Beach, Florida, who is retired from the Air Force and is a realtor with K.W. South Shores Realty. They have ten grandchildren.
He is retired from Norandal of Huntingdon. She is a teacher at Northwest Tennessee Headstart in McKenzie. On weekends she serves as a cook at Harmony Hill.
He laughs and says there is mostly only two things that he does that gets under his wife’s skin and that is when he runs over her flowers while mowing and not listening when she is talking.
She says she has a motto that has worked pretty well through the years to keep the couple together: “Work together. Do what needs to be done to take care of any situation.”
