After dating his girlfriend for five years, one Washington middle school teacher decided to propose. But when his student’s found out his plan, they insisted on helping out.

“They said, ‘No, we have to make it really bigger,’” Keegan said. “They’ve all met Alex because she comes to school events and they’d been bugging me about proposing to her.” Keegan’s student decided to write out ‘Alex will you marry Mr. Shorey?’ on their kites. “I was surprised they wanted to make it so big, but not surprised they wanted to be involved. They can be tough but they have big hearts.”

Keegan picked names from a hat to select which student would get which letter from the proposal, and on the big day, the kids stood in letter order and waited until Alex read their secret message. “She didn’t see it at first so I had to sort of point out what the letters were and she started to figure it out. She at first was kind of embarrassed and shocked and then got really excited.”

“I’m kind of corny at times so she was surprised I went with something so big instead of goofy but it was a lot of fun and she liked it.”

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[Featured image: ABC News/Dean Tyler-Babkirk]