Cheers to the Engaged Couple

Jessica Lyle has devoted six years of her life to cheerleading, and her dedication to the sport has led her to a marriage proposal from another former cheerleader.

Lyle and Bryce Marshall have planned a spring wedding April 11 at New Smyrna Beach. She cheered for the Warriors at West Orange High School for four years and for the University of Central Florida Knights for another two. Marshall cheered for one year at his high school in Jacksonville before becoming a UCF cheerleader as well.

The pair actually met when Lyle was a freshman at West Orange and Marshall was a freshman on the UCF cheer team. He was attending a state competition recruiting future cheer prospects for UCF.

“I had a conversation with (him) about furthering my cheer career at UCF, but I was in between (the University of South Florida) and UCF at the time,” Lyle said. “After that first interaction we had no contact until my junior year of college when, sadly, one of my teammates, Nix Thomas, that was also one of his very, very close friends, was involved in a tragic motorcycle accident.”

Marshall was in the United States Air Force and stationed in New Mexico at the time but returned to Orlando for his friend’s celebration of life. Lyle, Marshall and two other friends stayed connected through FaceTime calls, and although Lyle said she wasn’t interested in dating anyone at the time, Marshall slowly won her heart through their own FaceTime calls.

“He was living in New Mexico, and I was in Florida still in school, and I think we both weren’t expecting how much we really connected and shared many of the same morals and beliefs,” Lyle said. “We did long distance for about 11 months before I decided to move with him to his new assignment in California. We were in California for about a year and a half before Bryce got hired for a new job to be an Air Force pilot in the Reserves.”

The couple now is living in Oklahoma while Marshall continues his pilot training.