Couple find long-lost love, daughter; write a book about it

Denny and Karen (Lehmann) Vinar, formerly of Brownton, got married in 2015 and have released a family memoir titled “How Did You Find Me … After All These Years?” which tells the story of their high school relationship, how they reconnected 50 years later, and how their experience and marriage has blessed their families today.
The couple dated in junior and senior high and briefly in college for six months before eventually going their separate ways. Their journey to reconnecting again began when Dennis Vinar attended a dinner party on Oct., 25 2014.
At the dinner party, a friend of the hostess stood up and asked if everyone would like to play a game. Everyone agreed and she posed this question: “If your primary physician gave you 60 days to live, who would be one person you would want to take to Starbucks or take out to dinner?”
Many people in the room listed celebrities or politicians as candidates. Denny Vinar, on the other hand, thought of his high school sweetheart and said, without hesitation, “Karen Lehmann.”
In a stroke of luck, Denny Vinar found her on LinkedIn. “I just smacked my hands and said, ‘That’s my lady,’” said Vinar.
He then called her business phone number in Everett, Washington. She did not answer the phone, but he left a message with her assistant: “Just tell her Denny called, an old friend of about 50 years from Eden Prairie, Minnesota.”
“She called me back in 10 minutes,” said Vinar.
After their first phone call, the couple began regularly talking on the phone and texting (“I call it our electronic courtship,” said Karen Vinar) and eventually the conversation led to marriage.
For more about the Vinars' lifelong love story, see the Jan. 10 print edition of The Chronicle.