A Legacy of Grit
An unmistakable buzz fills the air as hundreds of student ring recipients and their families file in from the cold for the fall UNT Ring Ceremony — the path to the stage peppered with fun photo-ops and decorations, including an inflatable Scrappy.
Settling in the front row, Anne Green (’24) and her family are ready to celebrate her son, Grant, who is receiving his class ring. But there’s a surprise in store for Anne’s parents, Gregory (’88) and Christine Hutmacher (’92), who are about to be presented with their very own UNT class rings, decades after their graduations, as gifts from their three children.
Gregory and Christine’s love story began in the fall of 1980 at what was then-North Texas State University, when the duo met on the first day of a freshman journalism class in the basement of the General Academic Building. Their romance quickly began and before they knew it, there was a beautiful twist: they were expecting Anne.
“They were 19 at that point and you’ve got to make money and figure things out,” Anne says. “My mom had to stay home with me for about a year and my dad went to work in a sheet metal shop. They were both just trying to support their new family.”
With the addition of two sons over the next few years, it certainly wasn’t easy for the Hutmachers, but they did everything they could to ensure their children were well taken care of while taking night classes.
During that time, Anne and her brothers practically grew up on the UNT campus, attending classes with their parents.
“I remember going to classes with my mom and some of the professors really stepped up to make sure that she was supported,” Anne says. “She was doing photography classes and there was a professor who bought crayons and coloring books and all that stuff so that my mom could bring us with her to classes.”
Several major switches and several years later, Gregory graduated with a finance degree in 1988, following which Christine was able to return to school in a regular capacity — earning her photojournalism degree in 1992.
“My parents both went on to have really successful careers that they never would have had without those degrees, not ever,” Anne says. “My father was an executive for T Mobile, and my mom worked a corporate job with Sally Beauty Company. They provided a life that can only come from having mobility and they wouldn’t have had that mobility without the degrees.”
Anne began coursework at UNT in 2000, and her brother, Eric (’10), is also an alumnus.
Fast forward to 2022, when Anne’s oldest daughter, Georgia, was set to graduate and the entire family joined in on the celebrations by attending the UNT Ring Ceremony and Eagle Ring Dive. Anne says she remembers her parents being overjoyed that something that like that existed at UNT.
“They were like, ‘this is so cool!’” she says. “They didn’t have anything like that in the 80s. They said, ‘We never would have bought rings, we couldn’t have afforded it.’ It would have been like flying to the moon.”
The seed as planted, and Anne went on to buy her parents rings for the surprise — an ode to their grit and greatness.
And surprised they were. With five generations of Anne’s family in attendance — from Christine’s parents to Anne’s baby granddaughter — the special moment was one they’ll never forget.
“I couldn’t hold the tears back,” Gregory says. “To think that my daughter and the rest of our family thought of this and put this together. We were completely caught off guard.”
Reflecting on their experiences, Gregory and Christine have simple, yet powerful advice.
“I think the real message is: don’t quit,” Gregory says. “I have a specific memory of when I was working at a warehouse and had barely accumulated enough hours to be a sophomore, and I thought, ‘I’m never going to graduate at this point,’ because it was just taking forever. There were definitely some low moments where we didn’t think we were ever going to get there, but we didn’t give up — neither one of us.”
Anne and the rest of the family are grateful to have the opportunity to honor her parents in such a meaningful way and give back to the couple who sacrificed so much for their family.
“We’re a three-generation legacy family, and they worked so hard so that we could have this as well,” Anne says. “They say you never want to meet your heroes — you want to keep them on this pedestal. In my case, they’re my parents. I got really lucky that they blazed that path.”