Seven years after she accepted his proposal in front of the National Zoo’s giant pandas, a Virginia couple paid them a final visit before they’re sent to China.
Shelley Maneveld was standing inside the National Zoo’s giant panda house, wearing a cardboard panda hat, while a giant panda sat on an artificial rock a few feet away, eating bamboo.
Suddenly, Josh got down on one knee. She thought he was falling and started to help him up. But he hadn’t lost his balance. He took her by the hand and asked her to marry him. She began crying and said yes.According to snapshots that captured the moment, the panda went on eating.of admirers over the years. Josh said he picked the giant panda house as the place to propose because he knew Shelley loved the pandas.
And it will deprive Washington of a precious landmark that has drawn oohs and aahs from generations of fans, spanned 10 presidencies, and lasted half a century. (TheDuring the past few weeks, visitors like Josh and Shelley have come to the zoo to say farewell and recall the role the giant pandas played in their lives.
After the family moved to the United States in 2003, her mother, Winlyn Spruill, learned that the National Zoo had giant pandas. One day, two years following their move, she brought Shelley and her sister to the zoo. Once they returned, she said, a woman who was a zookeeper or volunteer asked the crowd of other visitors, “Could you guys give this lovely couple some space?”“The next thing I know, Josh just goes down on his knee,” she said. “I don’t know anything that he said. I know that he did ask me to marry him. But I had zoned out. I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, what are you doing? All these people are looking at us.
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