She threw in the line, and out came a proposal.

At the St. Mary's Carnival on Feb. 1, Elizabeth Ternes, 27, was in for a surprise when her boyfriend, Matt Lengenfelder, 29, proposed to her. Both are from Bismarck.

"I wanted to give her a poem because she likes poetry, but I wanted it to be a keepsake," Lengenfelder said.

And it was.

He prepared a message in a bottle, including a love poem that ended with, "Will you marry me?" On the night of the proposal, he took her out to dinner, then to the carnival, where she played the fishing game.

"When I threw in the rod, I started pulling something that was really heavy," said Ternes, "I pulled it out and it was a perfume bottle with a note."

Lengenfelder pulled the poem out and read … "Give me your heart, be my wife and proudly wear my ring …"

"She didn't realize what was going on until the last paragraph when I got down on one knee and gave her my ring," said Lengenfelder.

She was completely taken by surprise, he said. "She looked like she might cry at first, but ended up just smiling and hugging me."

"I was definitely shocked," Ternes said." It was something very creative on his part."

(Megan Nitschke is a senior at Mandan High School.)