Man Weds Eleventh Time after Taking Marriage Course

Oklahoma Is Model for Bush Administration Families Program

In a dramatic turnaround after taking a Get Married Now! course, a 54-year-old Ponca City, Oklahoma man wed for the 11th time yesterday.

"I thought I'd sworn off gettin' hitched, but that course made me see the light," said Edward Blackstone, whose ten prior marriages all ended in divorce. "This here's the love of my life," he added, putting his arm around his new bride. "This time it's gonna stick."

Blackstone and his bride, Teresa Lockhart, 19, spoke at a hastily arranged sidewalk news conference outside Ponca City Traffic Court, where Judge Bobby Bean took time off from adjudicating parking tickets to perform the wedding ceremony. The news conference was arranged by officials of Oklahoma's Republican party.

"It was O.K., I guess," the new Mrs. Blackstone said, when asked about the Get Married Now! course that she and her new husband took."Blackie does most of the talkin' for us," she said, casting a loving look at him.

Blackstone said he and his new wife first met at the course and that Teresa had never been married before. He works as an auto mechanic; she is a waitress at a diner.

A variety of government and private programs that teach people about marriage before they wed and then how to cope with the travails of married life has made Oklahoma a poster child for the Bush Administration's efforts to promote marriage. The Administration's goal is to reduce welfare rolls, out-of-wedlock children and divorce.

Critics have said Bush's proposed marriage programs are a sop to his conservative Christian political base.

The Federal budget that Bush sent to Congress calls for appropriations of $1.5 billion for a variety of state programs to encourage stable marriages and increase sex-abstinence among teen-agers.

State Republican officials at the news conference bristled when reporters asked if the marriage of Blackstone and Lockhart had been timed to coincide with Bush's re-election campaign.

"We was talkin' about gettin' married for some time," Blackstone explained. "We got to talkin' in the course and then we had coffee afterward and one thing led to another. You know how it is."

Blackstone said he went to work as usual yesterday with no plans to get married.

"I was underneath this car takin' bolts out of the oil pan and I seen these legs walk up to the car. Knew right away it was Terry," Blackstone said. "She says, 'Blackie, let's git married.' And I says without even thinkin' about it, 'Yeah girl!'"

Blackstone said they called the counselor who had taught the Get Married Now! course to tell him of their plans. He met them at the court house and helped obtain a marriage license and then arranged for Judge Bean to perform the ceremony.

Asked about her decision to marry, Lockhart said she had been clearing dirty dishes off tables after the diner's breakfast rush. "I just looked around and said to myself, 'Who needs this?'" she explained. "So I went lookin' for Blackie."

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