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seated, from left, in front: Lucy Hough, Jane Hough, Amelia Isley, Franklin Hough, Olivia Isley, Samantha Hough. standing, from left, Miller Isley, Robert Gerner, Amy Isley, Amelia Gerner, Andy Hough, Judy Hough, Gardner Meadows, Morgen Meadows, Jay Hough, Karen Hough, Frank Hough, Fran Early, and Walter Reynolds.

It's unclear whether or not Franklin Hough gave the then-Jane Harveycutter a ride on his horse or if he rode off into the sunset the first time they met in her hometown of Norton, Virginia, but regardless of the answer the results were still successful and the same.

"It makes a good story, that's for sure, but that's when I was a little girl," Jane Hough said.

"Of course I didn't pay much attention to her at the time," Franklin joked. When he graduated from high school at age 16, Jane was just leaving the third grade. Their first date was June 14, 1946 and they were married 60 years ago on June 25, 1949 - only after she graduated from Randolph Macon Women's College, her father made sure.

"I think I asked him in every corner of his backyard," Franklin said. After they were married, then came four children: Frank, Amelia, Jay, and Andy.

The family threw them a 60th anniversary party Saturday, June 20 with relatives coming from as far away as Boston and Florida.

Franklin was the director of the Virginia Baptist Children's Home for 34 years, and Jane started her career off teaching algebra before she ran for city council in 1972.

"They never had a woman on the thing [council] - they asked me first and I said I just don't have the time. I said if you want a good one just get Jane - she'll do a good job."

"One day I asked her: you know we have a very difficult situation here," Franklin said. "You're teaching school, serving on city council, and married to me and all three fulltime. And one of them has to go and I hope it's not me."

Even though she left her teaching job behind, Jane said she "thoroughly enjoyed that city council business." In her twelve years (elected '72, '76, and '80,) she was the chairman of the Fifth Planning District Commission, she served on the executive board of the Virginia Municipal League, and she was on the Small City Commission on the National League of Cities.

All the while, Franklin was still the director at the home on the hill.

"One year I took five of those boys [athletes at the home] up to Mars Hill, all a head taller than me, and I've come to enter my five boys at this school where I went to school," said Franklin. Instructed not to crack a grin, it took the registrar a while to see through the joke.

"She said ‘how do you get along with Mr. Hough,' and they said ‘you don't get along with Mr. Hough, you just do what he says," he said. Throughout the years with Jane's teaching and tutoring high school students along with his job, the pair had a significant impact on a lot of young people in Salem - without ever bringing their work home. One year, they said, he went to 16 college graduations. He gave away many brides in the chapel of the Virginia Baptist Children's Home, too.

"We are especially close to many of them," Jane said. "It's been a nice experience and a wonderful life."