THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 26, 1996 TAG: 9606250257
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 79 lines
A devotion to science and engineering, hard work and a love of the military have paid off for two local Navy reserve officer training candidates.
Ensign Nancy Deveau is the first female from the Hampton Roads Naval ROTC consortium - 300 students in three universities - to be selected for training as a nuclear surface warfare officer.
And Ensign Shannan Clark has been named the top graduating senior in the Hampton Roads NROTC battalion.
Old Dominion University, Norfolk State University and Hampton University NROTC students make up the battalion. Students may take classes at any, or all, of the schools.
Clark was presented with the Secretary of the Navy's Distinguished Naval Graduate Award, which is given to the top graduate in each of the nation's 65 NROTC units.
Neither officer sees her achievements as particularly outstanding.
``I just see it as I applied, I did the process, I got in,'' said Deveau, 24.
But that's not how Lt. Doug Roberts sees her selection; Roberts is Deveau's adviser and an instructor at Old Dominion University. He said it was more than just good grades and desire that made her the only woman out of 56 graduates in her class to be chosen for nuclear power school.
``She was a good candidate,'' Roberts said. ``If anybody who got good grades could get into nuclear power school, we'd have a lot more people in it.''
Deveau stood out, he said, because of her character, her mental toughness and her reasoning ability.
It also didn't hurt that she was so focused, knowing from the beginning of her ROTC career that she wanted to get a degree in mechanical engineering and apply to the Navy's nuclear power training school.
The training to work on ships' nuclear reactor plants is tough, intense, and it actually lasts several years: there's four to six months of training in Newport, R.I., for conventional ships, then a one-and-a-half- to two-year assignment onboard a non-nuclear ship.
After that, it's six months of nuclear power school in Orlando, Fla., and another six months of prototype training on the reactor plant that will be the officer's specialty.
So why did Deveau, who enlisted in the Navy right out of high school in her hometown of San Antonio, want to switch from being a corpsman to working in nuclear reactor plants?
``I liked calculus and science in high school, and I was good at them,'' she said. ``I heard nuclear power school was intensive and challenging, and I liked the ideaof learning power plant theory.''
A similar interest in science prompted Clark, 21, to major in chemistry at ODU.
She graduated last month with a 3.32 grade point average, but her scholastic achievements in a demanding program weren't the only reasons for naming her the battalion's top midshipman, Roberts said.
``There were numerous students with a better grade point average,'' he said,``but no one with more character or commitment than Shannan.
``She has outstanding leadership abilities, is a great example, and she is just a well-rounded, whole person who puts a positive light on anything that happens.''
Roberts - and Clark, too - credit at least part of the ensign's attitude to strong family support.
Clark, the eldest of five children reared in Virginia Beach, was a member of the Princess Anne High School Navy Junior ROTC during her last three years there; her dad, a driver for United Parcel Service, and her mom, a homemaker, encouraged her participation in NJROTC and support her desire to drive Navy ships.
Jeremy, her husband of three months, is a civilian who has agreed to follow Clark's career wherever it takes the couple.
``I'm very excited about being assigned to a ship,'' said Clark, who leaves Norfolk for Navy surface warfare school in Newport, R.I., at the end of this summer. ``I can't wait to get there. I want to actually get out to sea and do something.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, The Virginian-Pilot
Ensign Nancy Deveau...
Photo by BILL TIERNAN, The Virginian-Pilot
Ensign Shannan Clark... by CNB