Teen pregnancy made her miss prom. 54 years later, her husband made it right at a rock concert

Adulthood doesn’t mean the shutting down of childhood wishes and dreams. It, in fact, enables greater chances for the inner child to live the dreams and promises that were once left unfulfilled. A May 24 report by the Philadelphia Inquirer documents the case of two Pennsbury High School classmates who eventually united in wedlock and ended up fulfilling a childhood wish that the woman, Barbara Bujarski, so achingly missed: attending the prom. Thanks to her classmate and now-husband, Paul “Skip” Rickert, she finally fulfilled her long-held desire... a wish she had entirely forgotten, with a proper promposal.

Forgotten childhood wish

Bujarski never got to attend her senior prom at the Bucks County school because of her teen pregnancy, and Skip never forgot it. “My wife never got to be a girl,” Skip said. “I carried the prom thing with me for a long time.” Skip, who went on to build a remarkable career in rock and roll as a tour manager and director, has worked with Carlos Santana, Guns N’ Roses, Barbra Streisand, Ozzy Osbourne, and the Backstreet Boys. When he returned to the school for his Hall of Fame induction, he spoke about Bujarski and the experience she had missed. Moved by his speech, Assistant Principal Laura Tittle told him the school would be honored to welcome the couple to prom, scheduled for Saturday, May 30.

Recently, when he asked her to glam up in a new dress, she couldn’t guess he was talking about the prom. “When he told me, I thought we were going to be chaperones, and not all of this other hoopla,” Bujarski said. But the surprise later became bigger than she expected. The school invited the couple to serve as grand marshals of the prom parade, and Skip “prom-posed” her from the stage during a Santana show, and of course, she said yes.

Their amazing love story

The story of Bujarski and Skip began in 10th-grade geometry, where he sat behind her and often tried to chat with her and her friend. Bujarski had recently moved to Bucks County from Little Rock after her father’s death. As the second oldest of eight children, she already carried many household responsibilities, and her teen pregnancy left no room for prom. Skip, meanwhile, had the Pennsbury experience she missed, attending prom, spending summers on Long Beach Island, and later moving to California.

Bujarski gave birth to her son, William, on May 31, 1972, and eventually settled in Tucson, Arizona, after her marriage became difficult. Skip, who had moved from biochemistry into theater and then rock-and-roll touring, crossed paths with her years later but did not connect right away. It was only in 1981, when a band brought him through Tucson, that they met again. This time, there was a spark. Skip later asked William whether he could marry his mom, and the two tied the knot.

The lasting pull of childhood dreams

In an interview with The Guardian, British poet Joseph Coelho reported that by reconnecting with simple, little joys of childhood, and with the younger parts of oneself that are forgotten or laid inside, one makes room for more happiness in adulthood. However, just like Bujarski, six in 10 Americans do not fulfill their childhood dreams and passions, according to a 2020 survey by Zety. In the survey of 2,000 Americans, conducted primarily to assess whether people fulfilled their childhood dream jobs, researchers found that 67% of respondents reported not achieving their childhood vision. 58% reported they wished they could achieve their childhood dreams.

'Showing my wife how much I love her'

Skip said Bujarski is deciding between five dresses. “I asked her to get her hair done and get all glammed up. This is all about showing my wife how much I love her,” he added, “It’s going to be so much fun. I got the color-coordinated bow tie for the school colors, and I got flowers to match the dress. This is a thing.”

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