ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, October 19, 1996 TAG: 9610210049
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
PREPARING TO ACCEPT WOMEN INTO ITS RANKS, VMI is holding an open house for all students. Friday, the first two prospective female cadets took a look.
The latest first in Virginia Military Institute's march toward coeducation came Friday, when two young women walked into Jackson Memorial Hall and added their names to a list of 54 other prospective cadets.
Anjelica Garza and Amy Abraham, both 17, dodged TV cameras and reporters on their way to VMI's first coed open house for prospective students. Garza, who lives in Virginia, declined to talk to reporters.
"I don't see what the big deal is," said Abraham, of Cleveland, Tenn. "We're just normal people who are wanting to look at a great college."
Her mother, Desiree, sidestepped questions about her daughter's interest in possibly joining VMI's first coed class.
"We don't want to take away from the fellows," she said, and possibly "make the fellows resent the girls in the first place. Just let the kids explore the school."
The open house, which ends today at noon, is the second this year. The first was last month on the same weekend the VMI Board of Visitors voted 9-8 to accept women instead of going private. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the college no longer could accept public funds and exclude women.
"The reason I'm applying to VMI is not because I'm a women's-libber. ... VMI's honor and integrity and leadership training, I feel, can develop you as a whole person, and that's what college needs to do," Amy Abraham said.
Abraham and Garza were to spend Friday night in rooms in Lejune Hall that replicate the Spartan rooms in the barracks, where, so far, women still aren't allowed. However, two rooms on each of the barracks' four floors already have been vacated so conversion to women's bathrooms can begin.
The young men who also might go to VMI next year had mixed opinions about the arrival of women.
"Personally, I disagree," said Billy Myers of Mount Jackson. "That's all I'm going to say."
And Charles Robison of Norfolk said, "I'd rather not have women here - but I can get used to it."
As students learned about such VMI programs as the "rat" challenge, parents heard presentations from ROTC officers. Late Friday, prospective cadets were slated to spend an hour talking with "rats" - VMI's name for freshmen - about their grueling, toe-the-line school year.
So far, 276 women have asked about coming to VMI. Superintendent Josiah Bunting III has said he hopes 30 join the first coed class. In the next couple of weeks, a mailing to 40,000 female prospective students will go out, admissions director Vern Beitzel said. This year, 391 freshmen joined the 1,200-member corps.
The next open house weekend is next month. Among the women who may attend is Brooke Elliott of Poquoson. She holds the distinction of being the first women to formally apply to VMI. Her application arrived in the college admissions office Wednesday, school officials said.
"Either VMI or one of the academies is what I'm really looking at," Elliott said Friday in a phone interview.
She also has applied to all five military academies and Virginia Tech, which has a corps of cadets. A Civil Air Patrol pilot, Elliott plays volleyball, lifts weights, runs and maintains a 3.3 grade-point average. She also scored 1,100 on her SAT.
Elliott said she initially believed VMI should remain all-male but changed her mind.
"When the Supreme Court said, `You have to admit women,' and it didn't go private, I said, `Well, why not me?''' she said.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. 1. Amy Abraham, 17, of Cleveland,by CNBTenn., is shown to her room by VMI cadets Friday at the campus in
Lexington. 2. Anjelica Garza (left) and Amy Abraham, escorted by
cadet Jim Rees, are the first women to attend a
VMI open house. color.