Surprise of a lifetime: Blindfolded teacher participating in school game opens eyes and sees boyfriend on one knee

LORENA, Texas (KWTX) - A Central Texas elementary school teacher got the surprise of a lifetime when the game she was called up to participate in during a weekly school assembly turned into a surprise proposal.

Jordan Hilliard, a 3rd grade teacher at Lorena Elementary, had no idea when she took off a blindfold she’d open her eyes to her boyfriend Jacob Pope down on one knee.

“I had no idea it was coming,” Hilliard said. “To me it was just a normal Friday morning. I got my kids into the gym for assembly.”

What the beloved teacher didn’t know, was Jordan had concocted a plan to pop the question to Jordan with the help of principal Liza Cunningham, Hilliard’s mentor, Michelle Linnenkugel, and counselor Amanda Wilson.

Hilliard was called up to the front to play what she thought was a game with the grand prize being the chance to wear jeans for a month to school.

The teacher was blindfolded and asked to identify four objects she pulled out of a bag.

She nailed them.

“It was a spider ring, a ring pop and a rubber eraser ring,” she smiled.

The last object was a bread tie, which she also correctly guessed, and had special meaning for the couple.

“With us bread ties are very important because I started telling him about five months ago ‘baby I’ll marry you with a bread tie so just go ahead and propose.”

Hilliard opted for the grand prize over the chance to wear jeans.

When she opened her eyes, Pope was down on one knee and her homeroom class was just being him holding up a sign that read “Will you marry me, Jordan?”

The teacher didn’t even need to wait for the question.

“Before he could even say ‘will you marry me?” I just said ‘yes!’ Multiple times.”

He said ‘I haven’t even asked you.’ And I said, ‘I can read. It’s okay!”

Pope had rehearsed, and thought all week about the perfect words to say, but Hilliard couldn’t wait to respond.

“I had worked all the week on the words I could say, and I didn’t even get through saying them,” he laughed.

Hilliard, a graduate of McGregor High School, said she loves Lorena, her job, her co-workers and especially the students and she can think of no more special way than letting them all be a part.

“Those kids mean a lot to me,” she said. “Lorena means a lot to me.”

The happy couple plans to marry on Feb. 24, 2024 in Central Texas, but before that, they hope to hold a reception at Lorena Elementary that co-workers and students can attend.

“We want to have a mini reception at the school before the end of the year because not only are they my first set of kids at Lorena, they are the kids that helped me propose,” she said.

Copyright 2023 KWTX. All rights reserved.