Couple meet on campaign trail

Regardless of the results Tuesday, Dave Yansky is already a 2010 campaign winner.

“In fact, I'm going to be a double winner,” Yansky said, predicting that the candidate he's been working for – Terry Branstad - will win the race for governor.

Yansky has already won his race by proposing to fellow campaign volunteer Diane Burke, also of rural Iowa City. After a Oct. 28 Branstad rally at the Johnson County GOP headquarters in Coralville, Yansky, 55, was on his way to the courthouse to get his marriage license.

Yansky and Burke had been introduced by his brother, Doug Yansky of Iowa City, before they started working on Branstad's campaign for a fifth term. Their relationship bloomed – or took root, as Yansky said – after Burke, a nurse at University Hospitals, got involved in the campaign.

“We spent quite a few nights putting up campaign signs,” said Yansky, a manger at Trapeze ITS in Cedar Rapids, who got involved in Branstad's campaign before the June Republican primary.

He proposed to Burke after they attended the state GOP convention in Des Moines. He and Burke, 53, plan to be married the day after Thanksgiving when their families are in town.