Host, Adelphia Cable's political-issues show "Speak Out Live with Kate Hubben"
PETER NAGUSKY
Associate director, Cleveland Works
The local cable talk-show host was slow-dancing to the music of Buckwheat Zydeco at Wilbert's Bar & Grille in March 1994 when Peter cut in on her partner -- an action that "was completely out of character" for him.
Kate, who at the time was an aide to then-county commissioner Jim Petro, says Peter immediately won points with her simply because he knew who her boss was. In fact, Peter, as the administrator for Cleveland Works, a nonprofit welfare-to-work organization, had been in a meeting with Petro that morning.
"I was smitten that he would actually be reading the paper on a regular basis and be interested in who the county commissioners were," Kate remembers. "I spent the rest of the evening trying to continue our conversation. He was friendly but certainly made me work hard to strike up more conversation."
"I'm a man of few words, particularly after somebody knows how I dance," Peter quips.
"After that, my mother was convinced that this was going to be a great romance," Kate says. "My mother is convinced that you marry someone who's got some connection to a part of your life that's important to you."
Mom was right. Peter and Kate became engaged in 1995 and married a year later.
The next day, Kate met her buddies for breakfast to rehash the previous evening. It was then that she learned that Peter was as attracted to her as she was to him from a friend whose brother had been at Wilbert's with Peter. When he called the following Tuesday, Kate discovered that she and Peter shared another link: She had gone to summer camp in Chatham, Mass. — one of her favorite childhood destinations — with his older sister.
To read five more real-life romances, pick up the February 2001 issue of Cleveland Magazine.
