Peyton and Tyler Head: Bulldog sweethearts

When Peyton Head (AB ’19) attended freshman orientation, she remembers the presenter sharing a story about how he had found his Bulldog sweetheart and future wife on campus while he was a student.

“I remember feeling, ‘Oh, that’s not going to happen,’ but it was a pretty cool story,” Peyton said. Fast forward nearly eight years after orientation, and Peyton and her husband, Tyler (AB ’19), have their own sweetheart story to tell as they approach their second wedding anniversary.

When Tyler decided to propose to Peyton in 2021, he decided what is now the Schnitzer Family Media Lawn was the closest he could get to where they met…the Peyton Anderson Forum. They did not meet in a class, but instead at the Georgia Association of Broadcasters’ Radio Talent Institute (GAB RTI), an intensive program for students wanting to pursue a career in radio, broadcasting or podcasting. 

Tyler was sitting next to Ada Spratlin (AB ’18), a mutual friend. When Peyton went over to say hello to Spratlin, she recognized Tyler since they were both students at Grady College but had not officially met until that summer morning in the PAF.

GAB RTI sponsored a daily networking as part of the program, and Tyler and Peyton frequently found their way to each other at the socials.

“I made a goal of trying to get to know everyone there,” Peyton said, “but it seemed like he was going out of his way to talk with me.”

Whether they were talking about Vine videos or the mock audio interviews they created for the Institute, Tyler and Peyton discovered a lot of mutual interests.

“I think the moment when I thought, ‘Oh, this was something a little different,’ was one night when she and I were talking at one of the socials and everybody else had left without us realizing it,” Tyler said. “We were the only two people remaining because we were so locked into whatever we were talking about.”

After returning to school in the fall, Tyler and Peyton started dating, connecting over their related career goals, similar sense of humor, and music and movies they both liked. They attended UGA Wesley meetings on Wednesday evenings at Tate, drank coffee at Starbucks and walked around campus. They even discovered they grew up about 30 minutes from one another with Tyler calling the Covington area home and Peyton growing up in Henry County.

Despite the fact they were both journalism majors, their classes never intersected. Tyler earned a Certificate in Sports Media and Peyton was focused on a broadcast journalism career and earned a Certificate in New Media. They have a collection of shared memories at Grady College, though, occasionally crossing paths in the Newsource Studio when Tyler was doing Sportsource, or when he was waiting in the hall for Peyton while Professor Cantrell gave critiques after the latest Newsource episode.

“We have a lot of professors who we loved interacting with that we will still talk about,” Peyton said.

After thinking about his proposal for nearly a year, Tyler popped the question outside Grady College in summer 2021 and totally surprised Peyton. He tricked her into recording the proposal when he couldn’t find a local photographer to capture the moment. Tyler told Peyton since they were celebrating their third anniversary of dating, she should bring her camera to record their visit.

“I got a card for our anniversary,” explained Tyler, “and, I told her I wanted to record her reading the message I had written in the card to get her reaction. As she turned to set up the camera to record, I pulled out the ring and proposed, and we caught it all on camera.”

Tyler and Peyton married in April 2023 at Ian Springs State Park near Jackson, Georgia. Although there are a handful of Grady College students who have met and fallen in love, it’s safe to say that Peyton and Tyler are likely the only Grady alumni who were married by a fellow Grady College student. Phillip Hubbard (AB ’19) graduated with a journalism degree and is an ordained minister. Hubbard and Tyler were in a lot of sports media classes together and is a good friend of the couple.

Today, Tyler and Peyton live in Lexington, South Carolina, where Tyler is an on-air sports broadcaster and producer for the radio station 107.5 The Game and Peyton is the public information officer for the South Carolina Department of Transportation.

Author: Sarah Freeman, freemans@uga.edu