Grads shift gears from roommates to more

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Jamie Lynn Zambri

College of Applied Science and Technology graduates Steve Skurski ’15 and Danyelle Greene ’13 met as housemates in 2012. They were married in October.

Danyelle Greene ’13 (civil engineering technology) and Steve Skurski ’15 (mechanical engineering technology) weren’t always a package deal. In fact, they started out as far from one.

In 2012, Danyelle was in her fourth year of study at RIT. She was working to recruit a friend, David Donaldson ’13 who goes by “Shades,” to fill the last empty room in her five-bedroom house when a conflict arose. Shades, a mutual friend of Danyelle and Steve, had already committed to rooming with Steve and had no plans to leave him behind.

“My housemates and I needed one more person to help with the rent,” said Danyelle. “I had met Shades through line dancing and was pushing him to abandon Steve, who I didn’t know at the time, but he wouldn’t budge.”

After fierce negotiations, an agreement was reached and Shades joined the lease. Steve did too.

Four years later, Steve and Danyelle have signed a contract of their own. This time Shades was simply an onlooker.

Steve and Danyelle met in person three months following the arrangement in 2012. Danyelle was moving into the off-campus home, which Steve had already moved into, when they found their first bit of common ground. Steve drove a 2000 Chevy pick-up truck. Danyelle drove the same in an earlier model.

“I was bringing more boxes into the house through the garage when Steve was arriving back home with Shades,” said Danyelle. “There was a moment where I glanced to the side to look at him and our eyes locked because he was looking at me too. It was like a scene from a movie.”

Despite the storybook moment, sparks weren’t flying yet. Danyelle was in a relationship with a boy from back home and Steve was revisiting a high school fling, but a strong friendship was beginning to form.

“I was on the Baja team at RIT, and Danyelle had a lot of friends who were on the team as well,” said Steve. “She wasn’t on it because of the time commitment, but she could have been. We hung around with the same people and we got along really well.”

From engineering, to racing, to hunting and farming, to line dancing, Danyelle and Steve had a lot in common, so much so that when the timing was right and both had broken off their previous relationships, they opted to pursue one of their own. They began dating in December of 2012.

“It was quick. We had our first kiss in the back of a Ford pick-up truck, which felt so wrong because we’re both Chevy people,” Danyelle said. “We’ve been stuck with each other ever since. It was a really redneck romance.”

The romance turned into an engagement in July 2015.

Steve and Danyelle were married on Oct. 1. Their wedding guests included 15 former and current members of the Baja team.

The two live in Thompson, Pa., on a farm about two miles up the road from Steve’s childhood home.

“My mom and my grandma both met Danyelle early on when we were just friends,” Steve said. “The day that they met her, they told me that she was going to be the one that I would marry. I rolled my eyes at the time, but they were right.”

College of Applied Science and Technology graduates Steve Skurski ’15 and Danyelle Greene ’13 met as housemates in 2012. They were married in October. Jamie Lynn Zambri