Skip to Main Site Navigation Skip to Content Skip to Footer
Back To Top

The Dukettes

Garrett and Kristina (Riccio) Dukette ‘07

Dukettes at graduationGarrett and Kristina met at Hurley Hall in August 2004 when they both arrived for student orientation counselor (SOC) training. They struck up an immediate friendship when Garrett said, “You don’t look that weird; can I sit here?” After spending most of the fall orientation hanging out, the school year began and they went their separate ways.

That December, Kristina ran into Garrett outside of Webb Hall after class one day and asked him to be her date to an office Christmas party. He accepted and the two went on a few dates over the rest of the school year, but it was not until fall 2005 SOC training that the two realized they were meant to be more than just friends.

Over the course of their junior and senior years, Kristina and Garrett were inseparable, working together in Burnap Hall, taking education courses together, and even traveling to different baseball parks around the country, including Wrigley Field in Chicago and Camden Yards in Baltimore. Although Kristina didn’t know it at the time, a few months into their relationship Garrett returned home for a weekend and told his mother, “I think she is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

Dukettes at a baseball fieldAfter graduating in 2007 with majors in English and Education, Garrett and Kristina went on to teach English at the middle school and high school levels. In 2009 they married, surrounded by family and friends from Eastern, including Kim Silcox (who ran the SOC program the year Garrett and Kristina met), Stephen Russell (usher), Pat Bushnell (usher), Carrie (Fleischer) Bushnell, Megan (Izbicki) Koniecko, Laura Trostel and others.

In summer 2010 Garrett and Kristina bought their home in Columbia, CT, a stone’s throw away from Eastern. Shortly after moving in, they brought home Tessie, a beautiful golden retriever. They welcomed their first son, Philip, in 2013, and their second son, Nicholas, in 2016.

Dukette familyHaving recently celebrated 11 years of marriage, Kristina and Garrett still have fond memories of Eastern and all the friendships they made while on campus. Kristina now teaches seventh-grade language arts in Vernon, CT, and Garrett is in his second year as a middle school principal in Canterbury, CT.