PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Despite 50 years of friendship, pen pals Carolyn Evans and Connie McNiel had never met in person. That is, until now.<\/p>\n
It started in 1975 when Evans, from Whitehall, Pennsylvania, responded to a television commercial. It encouraged kids like her to send in their information and be matched up with a pen pal.<\/p>\n
McNiel’s 5th-grade class in California was on the other end of the deal. She remembers her teacher handing out cards with names and addresses on them.<\/p>\n
She sent out two letters, but she only received a response from Evans.<\/p>\n
First by mail, then by phone, then by social media. The two pen pals have spent the last half-century side-by-side, but never in person.<\/p>\n
They decided they would finally meet in time for their 50th anniversary of friendship.<\/p>\n
McNiel flew to Pennsylvania with her husband to meet Evans and her husband at the Hotel Bethlehem. Then, they took a trip to Philadelphia to visit the Art Museum, Independence Hall, and Pat’s King of Steaks.<\/p>\n
They continued to enjoy time together in Gettysburg and Hershey Park.<\/p>\n
And white this was their first trip together, they say it will not be the last.<\/p>\n
Following their childhood aspirations, Evans became a hair stylist and McNiel became a photographer. McNiel is also dedicating her time to creating an ‘All Ages and Abilities Accessible Park’ in her hometown of Carrollton, Georgia.<\/p>\n
They hope their story inspires people to connect with one another more often.<\/p>\n
Watch the video above to see moments from their special meeting together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Despite 50 years of friendship, pen pals Carolyn Evans and Connie McNiel had never met…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31345,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5844,19872,19871,5845,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-31470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-50-year","tag-for-the-first-time","tag-meet-in-person","tag-pen-pals","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}