THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, October 1, 1996 TAG: 9610010259
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 83 lines
Lexington
VMI launches ads to appeal to young women
Virginia Military Institute, under pressure from the federal government to end its all-male admission policy, has begun a national direct-mail advertising campaign aimed at college-bound women.
VMI is mailing literature to more than 30,000 college-bound women across the United States this fall. The school has also planned its first open house for male and female prospective cadets for Oct. 18-19.
The state-owned school - which battled for six years to preserve its 157-year men-only tradition - is asking high school guidance counselors to make sure women realize they're welcome.
``A challenge will be to try to overcome what, in the minds of some people, might be the feeling that we don't want (women) here,'' said Vern Beitzel, VMI's director of admissions. ``Yeah, we fought them for six years, so that's a natural way to feel. But the decision having been made, we want to do it right.''
A female admissions officer should be on the campus by November, and Beitzel said the school is establishing links with girls' prep schools.
High school counselors say it might be a tough sell.
``They're going to have do some type of PR to show these young ladies they really want them,'' said Ernest Holley, guidance director at Robert E. Lee High School in Staunton, about 30 miles from Lexington. ``There's been sort of a dark cloud over everything.'' Candy smokes stir huff
NEWPORT NEWS - Some parents are in a huff about candy cigarettes sold to neighborhood children from an ice cream truck.
The ``cigarettes'' being peddled in the Menchville Meadows neighborhood are made of sugar and artificial flavors but are packaged to look like the real thing.
``For all the legislation trying to keep kids from starting smoking, I can't believe they're selling candy cigarettes off the back of an ice cream truck,'' said Melissa Palmer, whose family lives in Menchville Meadows. ``If they were marketing them as candy, that would be different. But they're marketing them like real cigarettes.
``The kids think they are cool.''
The candy cigarettes sell for 25 cents, and are labeled with names such as Lucky Lights, Kings and Victory. The 3-inch-long treats inside have reddish tips and a minty smell.
Even if the truck stops selling candy cigarettes, another retailer likely will fill the gap. The Candy Candy store at the nearby Coliseum Mall, which opened about 18 months ago, initially refused to sell the ``Vantage'' and ``Lucky Lights'' candy for fear it would irritate some customers.
``But then the demand was so great,'' manager Pat Blackwell said. ``Now we can't keep them in stock.'' Who was that settler? JAMESTOWN - A Salt Lake City genealogist working with computer data says one name popped up when he tried to identify the early English settler found buried inside the original Jamestown fort. Bill Thorndill, who has a massive inventory of documents on the first years of the Virginia settlement, conducted his scan based on evidence of a potentially fatal gunshot wound to the colonist's right leg. A series of search attempts using the words ``gun,'' ``leg,'' ``shot'' and ``wound'' turned up a hit on Capt. George Kendall, a mutinous settler who was executed in late 1607. That is the same name put forth recently in a Virginian-Pilot article by Norfolk writer and historian George Tucker. ``I'm not saying that's who the skeleton is,'' Thorndill said in an interview with the Daily Press of Newport News. ``But that was the only guy that came up in my search.'' Jamestown Rediscovery director Bill Kelso, whose team recovered the body from its nearly 400-year-old grave last week, said Thorndill's results are another piece of the puzzle. But he said he couldn't accept the link to Kendall until the theory had been tested beyond a reasonable doubt. Also...
KING GEORGE - After police tracked him through three states, a King George County resident was arrested and charged with killing a man who was dating his estranged wife. Michael Lee Boggs, 46, is accused of shooting Westmoreland County resident Jack T. Alexander on Sept. 20 in the home of Boggs' wife, Darleen Boggs. MEMO: Compiled from AP reports. by CNB