ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605280039
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FREDERICKSBURG
SOURCE: Associated Press
AFTER HER HUSBAND retired and her children left home, Susan Herbert went away to school and found to the perfect 20-year-old roommate in Katy Maxey.
Susan Herbert and Katy Maxey love movies and music. Each of them has lived all over the country compliments of the U.S. Navy, and they're both studying historic preservation. Few college roommates get along so well.
Fewer still must overcome a generation gap. Herbert is 49; Maxey is 20.
They're roommates at Mary Washington College, where they live with 11 other students, all in their early 20s, in an old house that's been converted into a dorm. Although college officials don't keep track of student ages, they believe Herbert is the oldest student living in a dorm.
Every year a few older students, usually in their late 20s or early 30s, enroll and spend a year living on campus. But they usually move off campus because they find their lifestyles don't mesh with the younger, and often livelier, students.
Maxey said she never worried about having a roommate who's old enough to be her mother. She and Herbert had gotten to know each other while taking three classes together last year.
When Herbert suggested that Maxey move in with her this semester, she didn't hesitate. ``She never gave the image that if I did move in, she would do the mom thing. ... I never tried to be like a daughter to her. She has four children, she doesn't need five. I prefer to think of her more as a friend than a mother.''
Herbert started taking classes at Mary Washington in the fall of 1994, when her two youngest children were high school seniors. She commuted twice a week from her home in Lovettsville near Leesburg.
The four-hour commute each day got old fast, and her responsibilities at home as a wife and mother made it tough to focus on her studies. She decided to move to Fredericksburg last August and live on campus. Her husband, George, is a retired Navy officer. He manages a testing lab for Rehau Plastiks Inc., a German plastics manufacturing company in Leesburg.
Herbert said nonmilitary people don't understand how she and her husband can live apart. It isn't much different than when he was in the Navy, living offshore for months at a time.
``You get used to that separation,'' she said.
George Herbert said the way he sees it, ``It's kind of her turn.'' Some women tell Susan Herbert she's brave to go back to school after a 30-year break.
``It's not bravery, maybe it's need,'' she said. Her youngest children were about to leave home when she resumed her education. She dreaded their departure. With her husband away from home so much, she was the one who roller skated with the kids, helped with their homework and worried when they learned to drive.
``I knew my life was going to change,'' she said. ``I decided I'd change it rather than let it change me.'' She chose Mary Washington instead of a college closer to home because of its historic preservation program. But now she wants to get a degree in English and perhaps write or edit for a magazine.
Herbert, a sophomore, and Maxey, a junior, will be roommates again next year. When Maxey graduates, Herbert plans to live by herself in the dorm. ``I'd never find someone I could live with as well as Katy. It takes more than being friends,'' Herbert said, ``it takes a compatibility in lifestyles. We not only like each other, but we're like each other.''
LENGTH: Medium: 67 linesby CNB