Dexter college grad’s unique wedding proposal attracts nationwide attention
By Jen Lynds
BDN Staff
PRESQUE ISLE — When the 154 graduates marched out of the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s 107th Commencement ceremony at Wieden Gymnasium on Saturday, May 14, they all had their new diplomas with them.
Contributed photo
BIG SURPRISE — Hayley Hamilton, a fine arts major at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, got the surprise of her life when graduating senior Tim Babine proposed during UMPI’s commencement May 14.
Only one graduate, however, walked out of that building with a new fiancee.
During the ceremony, Timothy Babine, a member of the graduating Class of 2016, surprised the entire audience when at the end of the ceremony, he got down on one knee and asked Hayley Hamilton, a fine arts major, to marry him. She said yes.
Babine graduated with a physical education non-teaching degree, and university officials believe he is the first student in UMPI’s history to ever ask a fellow student to marry him during a commencement ceremony. Since Saturday, a video of the proposal has attracted the attention of local and national media, including ABC News, Good Morning America, Fox News, Inside Edition and CBS.
Babine said he managed to pull off the proposal with the support of UMPI President Linda Schott and other college administrators, who, as a ruse, called him up to the podium after commencement was nearly over to “say a few words to his classmates.”
“It was really important both to college officials and to me that this proposal not take away from the fact that commencement was a day for all my classmates,” Babine told the BDN on Tuesday. “It was not just my day or Hayley’s day, and I agreed wholeheartedly.”
So after all the commencement speeches were over, all the degrees conferred and all the tassels turned, Schott called him up to the podium.
“I think that most of my classmates just thought that I was going to say a few words of congratulations to all of them,” Babine said.
He did congratulate his classmates and then, he added that he had “a special someone here that I want to do something important with.”
In the video posted on YouTube by the university of the commencement, Babine can be seen striding off the podium and down an aisle before getting down on one knee in front of Hamilton.
Her hand goes over her mouth and she nods yes before Babine places an engagement ring on her finger as the crowd vigorously applauds and cheers.
Babine, a Dexter resident who met Hamilton in 2014 while working security at the college, said that his fiancee “brings out the best in me.”
Efforts to interview Hamilton, who is from New Hampshire, were unsuccessful. But Babine said she spent the past two years with him hiking and pursuing outdoor recreation around Aroostook County while they studied at UMPI.
He said Tuesday that he will now head off to Marshall University in West Virginia to pursue a master’s degree in exercise science, and Hamilton will finish her studies in New Hampshire.
“We will be apart for a bit,” he said, “but then it is back together to get married.”
Editor’s note: The commencement was live streamed and can be viewed on the UMPI youtube page. To view the proposal, visit https://youtu.be/vIOamdIETqE. The proposal appears about 1:39:30 into the video.