Terry and Laura Fons met on a UW-Madison intramural volleyball team in 1982. After graduation, the two got married and went on to have four children who would eventually create a Badger legacy.
All four of their kids—Nathan, Lindsay, Steven and Allie—followed in their parents’ footsteps “by the light of the moon” and joined the Badger family. Both Steven and Allie are currently on campus completing their undergraduate degrees.
Steven is a senior studying Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and can be found on the field of Camp Randall marching with the band as a mellophone player. Allie is a sophomore majoring in Dietetics, just like her mother did when she was at UW-Madison.
“I applied to all of these places and toured a couple of them, and I think I just kind of always had a feeling that I would come here, even when I was at these other schools,” Steven said. “Partially because both my older siblings are here, my parents are here; I spent so much time around here.”
The kids said they never felt pressured by their parents to come to UW-Madison, each of them even toured other universities before finally deciding to call UW home. But when Allie completed the Fons family tree as the final of the four Badger children, the family was elated.
“It was more so we all fell in love with it individually,” Allie said about how she decided to come to Madison. “I just heard all amazing things about coming here, so I thought why not?”
The Fons family legacy began with Norman Fons, grandfather to Steven and Allie. Though he came to UW for law school, not his undergraduate degree, when asked where he attended college he always says Madison, Allie said.
Norman’s family tree began to sprout Badgers as five of his six children went to UW-Madison, two of which also married Badgers. Steven and Allie have two cousins who they often randomly run into on campus.
Though Allie is the last in the family, this doesn’t mean the legacy is coming to a close; both Steven and Allie said they would love to see their potential future children attend UW-Madison.
