As if two company valentines who recited vows in the bed of a haul truck wasn’t enough of a story to run today, the ceremony was performed and ordained by a company Cupid.
Last year, on a calm November day inside the haul truck bed that functions as a mining exhibit not far from the general administration office in Bagdad, two company employees completed their own merger of sorts. Alice Jenkins, Senior Supervisor, Accounting-Bagdad, presided over the marriage of Sara Del Curto, Senior Financial Analyst-Phoenix, and Eric Hansbraugh, Senior Supervisor, Mill Maintenance-Morenci.
Del Curto and Hansbraugh became friends as coworkers at Bagdad in 2017 and began dating in 2021. By last year, they already were planning a big wedding sometime around 2023.
As is often the case at Freeport, good employees get good opportunities, and both Del Curto and Hansbraugh were following career development paths that had them in different places, with Del Curto eventually leaving Bagdad for the Safford mine and Hansbraugh leaving Bagdad for Morenci.
“We had it all planned for May 2023, but then we realized that we wanted Freeport to recognize us as a couple,” Del Curto said. “We knew that the company did whatever it could to keep them together if there was a job available for a spouse.”
Getting to know the “five or six” married Freeport couples Del Curto and Hansbraugh met at Bagdad also motivated them for another reason, she said.
“We knew we wanted to get married, but part of why we wanted to get married sooner than later, was from being around couples like us who both worked for the company, because they were so happy, and the company was so good to them,” Del Curto said. “I guess you could say Freeport made an honest woman out of me.”
Del Curto already was as honest as the day is long. Just ask Jenkins, a third-generation native of Bagdad who originally earned her ordination to officiate the marriage of a close friend in Prescott Valley.
“I’ve known Sara and Eric since they moved to Bagdad, and they’re just amazing people,” she said of the couple who share a home in Thatcher from where Del Curto works remotely. “The ceremony was short and sweet, because I think they might be doing something bigger later, but it was really awesome, and I felt so fortunate to be a part of their day.”