Rob Schoff remembers the moment he knew he had caught Danielle’s eye.
“She told me, ‘You look like sh–,’” he said with a laugh in Great Falls College’s Military Family Center recently, “and bought me a coffee.”
Danielle rolled her eyes at him and clarified: “We both did.”
They had just finished long shifts doing inventory at Albertson’s, where Rob worked as the deli manager and she worked as assistant manager at the in-store Starbucks.
“I got a free coffee; I was pretty stoked,” he said.
He also found his forever Valentine.
“We’ve been together eight years, married for six and never argued once,” Rob said. “That’s kind of a cool thing.”
Flash forward to now and Rob, 36, and Danielle Schoff, 31, are taking pre-requisite classes at Great Falls College, with Danielle intending to apply this month for the college’s Registered Nursing program and Rob planning to apply for the college’s Licensed Practical Nursing program.
“Seeing patients at the pharmacy struggling or needing more help, you develop relationships with these people, and I want to help them more,” Danielle said on why she wants to become a nurse.
Danielle, who has stayed at Albertson’s but moved to the pharmacy as a certified pharmacy technician, started first at Great Falls College in 2024 as she felt like she had maxed out with that job after seven years and was looking for something more.
Seeing Danielle sparked something in Rob, and he decided: “You know, I want to grow with you.”
There was a problem, however.
“I needed to be honest about not having my GED,” he said.
Was that difficult?
“I was STRESSSSSSED. ‘What a loser,’” he needlessly worried about her thinking. “But she was super accepting. She was super supportive of it.”
Rob immersed himself in his studies for the high school equivalency test, taking classes online from the Khan Academy and spending many, many hours with a couple of textbooks to prepare for the exam.
He also enrolled in preparatory classes with the Great Falls Public Schools’ Career and College Readiness Center on the Great Falls College campus. “Amazing program,” Rob said. “Those guys are awesome. They gave me the confidence to say, ‘I got this.’”
“He really studied,” Danielle said, with pride. “It was all he did.”
Like Danielle, Rob had stayed at Albertson’s and switched jobs. He was working as a butcher.
“I was working seven days a week, six hours a day so I could study,” he said. “My boss was super cool allowing me to do that.”
He passed the high school equivalency in May 2025, and he moved into the medical field and has been working as a certified nursing assistant since.
They are raising 11-year-old, Korvyn, whose birthday is the day after Valentine’s Day, taking classes, working and helping their own parents, but they said it hasn’t been overwhelming.
“We’re developing ourselves,” Rob said. “It’s a beautiful thing.”
Danielle added Korvyn serves as inspiration for them to be good examples for him and to help better his life by advancing in their own.
And what do they love about Great Falls College?
“The thing I like about Great Falls College is the flexibility of it, and the cost,” Rob said. “The cost is amazing. You look at other colleges in the state of Montana … the cost here is so much cheaper, much more approachable.”
“The quality is not cheap,” Danielle said.
“No, the quality is amazing,” Rob agreed. “You get the same quality”
“I’d say it’s a little better because you have smaller classes,” Danielle said. “You can meet with your professors. They actually seem to care.”
For a little break on Saturday, they have some Valentine’s Day plans.
“We’re going to the symphony,” Danielle said.
No argument from Rob, as always.