DUNCAN, Okla_Reality television, some people love it, and others, well let's just say they're not fond of it, either way, most people think reality TV began a few years ago.
Shows like 'The Bachelor', show men and women, often times desperately, looking to find love. But, there is one Duncan couple who were married on a reality TV show 60 years ago.
Sixty years of wedded bliss, not many people can say that these days, and here's something else that few people can say, they are happier together today, than they were all those years ago and it's obvious.
"I didn't try the first date or the first time I met a girl to you know wrap my arms around and kiss a lot so I thought that would impress her and apparently it did because here we are some number of years later." Duncan resident Cy Jeffords said.
Jeffords and his bride Joann fell in love and got married on the TV show "Bride and Groom," all because Joann listened to a show on the radio.
"When we were planning to be married I said well I'm gonna write ‘bride and groom' I'd like to know what you have to do to be on that ‘bride and groom' show because I loved it," she said.
She wrote and "Bride and Groom" loved her. A few weeks later she and cy were married.
The year was 1952 when Cy and Joann said ‘I do' on national television, but there was a problem, there were no TV stations in this area until 1953 so none of their friends and family here in southwest Oklahoma could watch it.
But that didn't matter to the lovebirds, they received a copy of the program on 16 millimeter film to cherish forever, and it's lasted as long as their love for each other.
"She was just a special girl and still is, that's the way I feel about her and you might as well know it," Cy said.
"When I first saw Cy and first met him I went back to work and I told my girlfriend at work I'm going to marry Cy Jeffords, she kind of laughed," Joann said, "and said what makes you say that and I said I just know that I am. He was everything I really wanted in a husband, he was a gentleman, he treated me like a lady, he still opens the car door for me all the time."
So what's the secret to their 60 years of marriage?
87 year old Cy Jeffords and his 79 year old bride Joann continue to do things that they know will please each other. They also say they take their wedding vows, including til death do us part, very seriously.
Joann likes to say that the minister who married them on TV, Reverend Harold J. Quigley, tied a really good knot.
