54 years ago, they couldn’t go to Pennsbury High’s prom together. Now, a rock and roll lifer is making a redo happen for his wife.

Barbara Bujarski never got to attend her senior prom at Pennsbury High School: Adult responsibilities meant a school dance was out of reach for her as a teenager.

For years, that bothered Paul “Skip” Rickert, who graduated with Bujarski in 1972 but didn’t really know her then. The two reconnected eight years after graduation, though, and eventually married and raised two children together.

“But my wife never got to be a girl,” Rickert said. “I carried the prom thing with me for a long time.”

Skip and Barbara Rickert’s lives have not been lacking. Skip has built a remarkable career in rock and roll as a tour manager and director, working for the likes of Carlos Santana, Guns N’ Roses, Barbra Streisand, Ozzy Osbourne, and the Backstreet Boys. Barbara worked as a research chemist and is an avid horsewoman.

But when Skip returned to Bucks County in the fall to be inducted into the Pennsbury High School Hall of Fame, an offhand mention that Barbara never attended Pennsbury’s big-deal prom — Reader’s Digest named it “America’s Best Prom,” and it’s the subject of a book — planted the seed of a possible do-over in his mind.

Assistant principal Laura Tittle told him the school would be honored to have the couple at prom. Now, they are set to be the grand marshals of the prom parade, scheduled for next Saturday. (This being 2026, Skip prom-posed from the stage of a Santana show. Barbara said yes.)

“She’s embracing it, deciding between five dresses — I asked her to get her hair done and get all glammed up,” Skip said. “This is all about showing my wife how much I love her.”

Skip had a charmed Bucks County childhood: St. Michael the Archangel grade school, shenanigans with his four siblings and the Hill Gang, his Levittown friends.

“The neighborhoods were just full of kids,” he said. “I loved every second of growing up there.”

In second-period geometry class in 10th grade, Skip sat down directly behind Barbara, who had recently moved to Bucks County from Little Rock to live near family after her father died the previous year. She was the second oldest of eight children, with significant responsibilities at home.

Barbara remembers the charmer behind her chatting up her and her friend.

“He was very cute, but he sort of wanted to cheat from our papers,” she said. “He said, ‘Barb, lean right, Joyce, lean left.’ I turned around and said, ‘Study harder.’”

That was the extent of their high school interactions. Skip was soon moved to another seat clear across the room because “he was too fresh,” Barbara remembers.

Their paths diverged. Skip had an idyllic Pennsbury experience, he said, but Barbara entered a relationship with an older boy and became pregnant as a senior. Her son was born May 31, 1972, so prom was not a possibility.

She graduated and went to work. But when her marriage became a difficult situation, Barbara took her child and left Bucks County, eventually settling in Tucson, Ariz., earning an associate’s degree, building a career, raising her son.

“That’s my girl,” Skip said, recounting his wife’s early years. “I’m so damn lucky.”

Skip had a radically different young-adulthood: He attended prom, spent summers on Long Beach Island surfing and lifeguarding, and eventually moved to California with $400 in his pocket.

“I was not built to stay in the neighborhood,” he said.

He enrolled at the University of California San Diego as a biochemistry major, with an eye toward veterinary school. He relished the classes, but eventually pivoted after a single theater class hooked him on a different career trajectory.

“I saw audience members enjoying something I contributed to, and I said, ‘This is it,’” he said. He became UCSD’s first undergraduate technical director of the theater program. He developed skill sets to manage people and projects.

After college graduation, Skip began working on lighting for rock shows. Dreams of getting a graduate degree and working as a Broadway technical director evaporated as he became a rock and roll guy, earning an invitation in 1980 to take care of drum kits and keyboards for the Australian group Little River Band on a tour.

Skip didn’t know a thing about keyboards or drum kits, but he made it happen.

“I have never been off tour since,” he said.

Skip embraced the rock and roll lifestyle, living life on the road, with occasional returns to Bucks County to visit family and friends, including a trip to Pennsylvania to serve as a groomsman in his brother Bud’s wedding. Barbara, a friend of Bud’s bride, Debbie, was a bridesmaid. The two did not connect.

“But I always knew what Skip was doing,” Barbara said — Debbie kept her in the loop. On a whim, when Little River Band was passing through Tucson, Barbara called Skip. It was 1981.

Skip flipped through his Pennsbury yearbook to refresh his memory about Barbara. They agreed to meet for a drink.

This time, there was a spark.

“He said, ‘Tell me in 100 words or less what you were up to in the last 10 years,’” Barbara remembered. They talked until 6 a.m.

“We didn’t even touch hands,” Skip said. “It was all conversation.”

From there, they built a life together. Barbara moved to California; eventually, Skip asked her son, William, if he could marry his mom. Skip adopted William, and the couple had another child, a daughter, Katie.

Eventually, Skip became a force in the business, working for bands doing stadium shows. He didn’t have to make calls to find work — the big names came to him.

“But it all came with a cost, the traveling,” he said. “My wife is the backbone, and she’s the reason we’re all still here. She held the fort down, she nurtured the children.”

Barbara worked full-time and managed the kids’ lives; Skip came home when he could, but always encouraged Barbara’s dreams. He insisted she cut down her hours at work so she could pursue the bachelor’s degree she always wanted. He encouraged her to keep her passion for horses alive.

“I couldn’t be prouder of her,” said Skip, now 71.

These days, the two have the on-the-road thing down to a science. Barbara is busy with horse shows. Skip has been Carlos Santana’s tour director for 22 years — a job that is part architect, part accountant, part negotiator, and all joy, all these years into the work.

“I love being a leader, I love being a conductor,” he said. “I’m lucky and fortunate and grateful that I’m still working, doing exactly what I love.”

Barbara, who is 71, flies out to join Skip on every tour segment. They have seen the world, but make time for their kids and grandchildren.

And for the prom, which Skip undersold to Barbara at first.

“When he told me, I thought we were going to be chaperones, and not all of this other hoopla,” Barbara said. “He knew I would freak out. I’m not a spotlight person.”

But all was revealed in time, and Barbara is “so excited” now. Skip has a tux; Barbara was nervous about choosing a dress.

“I’m telling the girls from high school, ‘You guys get to pick. It’s not country, it’s not blue jeans, it’s not riding horses.’ They’re having a field day.”

Skip is all in, and fully expecting no one to notice him. He wants Barbara to feel like the prom queen.

“It’s going to be so much fun. I got the color-coordinated bow tie for the school colors, I got flowers to match the dress. This is a thing,” he said.

The Pennsbury people asked Skip if he and Barbara had a song. His life has been built around music, but because of their unconventional courtship, they don’t really have a song.

So Barbara — with a little help from AI — wrote one. (“In 100 words or less, baby, you became my best,” it says, a nod to their reconnection.)

The road to prom, 54 years later, was not what either would have predicted.

But, Barbara said, isn’t that the point?

“It’s been a fun ride. That’s the takeaway. Nothing in this world is perfect, and, you know, it’s how you approach everything — how you circle back to each other. He has always been my one and only. I think it’s a great relationship love story, thorns and all,” she said.