Welland reporter receives proposal

Journalists spend their careers writing about the lives of other people. So you could imagine the shock that Welland Tribune reporter Maryann Firth felt when she found herself in the middle of the mystery she was investigating. It all ended in a marriage proposal she will never forget.

As a news reporter Maryann Firth is naturally curious. And when some mystery pink hearts started popping up all over Welland, she wanted to know who was behind it: “I was very curious where they were coming from. What they meant mostly. They didn’t have any message on them.”

Weeks went by. The Tribune asked people in Welland what they knew about the pink hearts. And then the next day, Maryann said: “One showed up beside the Tribune building with a big question mark on it. So it was like they were taunting us.”

And two weeks ago other hearts were posted that said Chippawa Park on Sunday at 3. Maryann was now covering the story for the Tribune. Sixty people showed up Sunday afternoon to find a tent there.

Maryann said: “There was a man in the middle of the tent handing out flowers. He had a suit on and a box on his head with a big pink heart on it. And then he gathered the rest of the flower and brought them over to me. Got down on one knee. Pulled the box off his head and all was revealed.”

The mystery man behind the hearts was maryann’s boyfriend of eight years Ryan St. Denis. He’d been hoping the hearts would gain attention: “So that when the day came to propose to Maryann she would be surprised and maybe a little bit embarrassed.”

Ryan wanted to cap off this pink heart caper by putting a huge heart banner across the Main Street bridge in Welland. But the bridge was being painted. And that plan didn’t
work out. Banner or not, Maryann says she was in shock: “I couldn’t speak and just trying to hold in the tears. And then I realized I’m on deadline. I need to write a story.”