- February 13, 2026
- By Karen Shih ’09
No one could understand why Julie Heath ’80 once drove around in an Oldsmobile with a cork in her mouth, practicing her diction. Or how she winged it on-air for WMUC radio, offering stress reduction tips through “Heath’s Health Hotline.” Or why she’ll offer congratulations for “granulating” from college.
At least that’s what she thought, entering retirement in her 60s as a single woman.
Then a Facebook message changed her life. Barry Zuckerman ’80, who she’d met on the first day of classes at the University of Maryland in a smoky Tawes Hall classroom, asked in August 2023 if she wanted to get dinner—nearly 40 years after they’d last seen each other.
Despite all the life they’d lived apart, weathering divorce, deaths of loved ones and career changes, they picked up right where they left off. And today, they’re a happily married couple, enjoying life with their three cats in Annapolis.
“I can’t imagine being on a dating website and finding someone fresh,” said Heath. “To have that University of Maryland connection and all those memories is huge. That’s what makes our relationship so rich. We have such a great foundation.”
Heath and Zuckerman have kept a variety of memorabilia from their college days, including WMUC radio shirts and stickers, photos and a commencement booklet.
Surprisingly, they never dated in college. They never even kissed. “There was the usual tension, of course,” said Zuckerman, but both had significant others. Instead, they became best friends. They sat next to each other in all their radio, TV and film classes, and partnered up to produce and host public service announcements, classical music shows and 88-hour charity marathons for WMUC. Outside of class, Zuckerman deejayed for local bar and bat mitzvahs, so “I’d be his roadie,” said Heath. They’d take day trips to Ocean City or to Catoctin Mountain Park to go hiking, and met each other’s parents over dinner and at graduation.
Heath has Polaroids of their final meeting, when she invited Zuckerman to a group dinner to meet the man who would become her husband. By then, they’d started drifting apart.
Neither left the area, even as their lives diverged; Zuckerman was in Baltimore, and Heath was in Annapolis. Both got married, had kids, got divorced. Then Heath was in a 17-year relationship that eventually ended, and she just couldn’t imagine starting all over again. Zuckerman remarried but became a widower. He was working through his grief when he finally thought to ask Heath out, who he’d friended on Facebook but never communicated with, other than a yearly “Happy Birthday” post.
Over dinner in August 2023, they realized the same thing: Neither had changed since college. Zuckerman noticed that Heath still talked with her hands and peppered the conversation with inside jokes like changing “graduating” to “granulating” and “Hampshire” to “hamster”). Heath said of Zuckerman, “His voice, his smile, his sense of humor, it was all there.”
They took things slow, buoyed by what they saw as signs that they'd reunited at the right time: Heath had been waiting for the right time to get new pets after her two old felines passed away the previous year. Zuckerman told her on their first date he had three, ready for more humans to serve their every whim. His late wife had been an artist, and Heath had started a second career as an art gallery owner after years in radio. And when Zuckerman went to get some old boxes out of his daughter’s basement, an envelope fell out, containing a single film strip with a portrait of Heath as a student.
A few months later, they announced themselves as an official couple at the WMUC 75th anniversary celebration, where they saw many of their old friends from the station.
“Everybody was so excited for us,” said Heath. “We were like glued at the hip (in college), so they weren’t totally surprised, but they were thrilled.”
After about two years of dating, they got engaged over a bagel. Though they initially thought about eloping, their friends convinced them to have a beach party in Annapolis to celebrate.
“This is the easiest, most natural transition I’ve ever gone through. … It’s like it was always meant to be,” Heath said. She’s embraced being a step-grandma to Zuckerman’s grandkids, they volunteer together at Baltimore’s WTMD public radio station, and they’re brushing up on their on-air skills to start a podcast about finding love later in life. “We have given other people a lot of hope.”