
DATE: Wednesday, April 23, 1997             TAG: 9704230034

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: LARRY MADDRY

                                            LENGTH:   93 lines

FELLOW GRADUATES RECALL PLAYMATE AS SHY STUDENT AT KEMPSVILLE HIGH

WELL, WHAT DAYA know.

Donna Evans, a 1994 graduate of Kempsville High School, is the Playmate of the month in Playboy magazine's May issue.

I have a copy of the magazine on my desk, mailed with a press release to the newspaper. I used to be a regular reader of Playboy but have gotten out of the habit. Which means - for all you feminists out there getting ready to write a letter of complaint about this column - that I enjoy looking at naked women.

My attitude is akin to Mark Twain's. Twain once wrote that he would rather look at Mrs. Grant naked than Gen. Grant in dress uniform with medals.

There is a five-page layout of Donna Evans in Playboy. She has changed her name for promotional purposes. She's Lynn Thomas now.

Lynn is a studio art major at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y. Many former Kempsville students will remember that she was a color guard with the high school band.

It will come as no surprise that Lynn Thomas has a voluptuous figure. She also has a shy look in the Playboy photos. The few folks I talked with who knew her when she lived in Virginia Beach say the shyness is natural. And they are slightly surprised that she is a Playmate.

But nobody seemed shocked.

Reading the fluff about Lynn Thomas that accompanied the magazine photos will lead you a long way from the real story here. There is a rather touching sentence in the press release sent by Playboy: ``Miss May's mom did her nails for her pictorial.''

Lynn's mother is a manicurist in Virginia Beach. She's also Vietnamese. Her mother married an American in Vietnam. The marriage lasted only five years. She raised a family of kids, including Lynn, on her own. That is a significant accomplishment dwarfing the celebrity-of-the-month status conferred by Playboy. Her daughter loves her mother very much and was protective of her when we talked by phone.

``I don't think my mother would want to talk with you,'' Lynn said. Anyway, she added, ``It would be impossible, because she's on the West Coast at this time.''

She said that her mother had been very supportive when Lynn told her she intended to pose for Playboy. And that she had spent much time making Lynn's nails look beautiful.

Lynn said that posing for the photographs was relatively easy because the magazine has many women working on the sets.

She had a friend who knew a photographer who had shot Playmates, she said. The friend suggested she mail the magazine some photos of herself. She did.

``Then they flew me to Chicago for a test shooting.'' Lynn wasn't able to discuss the money she'd received for the project.

Being a Playmate has been ``a lifetime experience,'' she claimed. And what has been the response to the photos from her friends back in Virginia Beach?

``I don't know, because I really don't keep in touch,'' she said. But she said her friends in college had all been supportive.

She didn't tell anyone, except a few of her close college friends, that she'd be the May Playmate. ``Now it has created a stir, but everyone has been very encouraging and says it's great.''

Given the chance, she'd pose nude again, she said.

``Playboy doesn't project a pornographic image, it projects a sensual image that is tastefully done,'' she said.

She's taking an accelerated course load at Manhattanville College, hoping to graduate early. ``I never really studied art in high school,'' she explained.

Her art courses are ``a personal exploration rather than career focused,'' she said. She doesn't know what career she'll pursue after graduation, but after all, she's only 21.

No one I spoke to who had known her had anything bad to say about Lynn.

``She was just a very sweet girl,'' a former classmate said. ``My initial reaction to the Playboy spread was surprise . . . because her mother seemed to keep a tight rein on her when she was in high school. She was very friendly, when not all girls were, and very popular.''

Another schoolmate recalled that she had been a great color guard with the Kempsville Band, which is always one of the top bands in the state.

``She was featured in one of the half-time shows as a dancer,'' he said. ``It was a ballet-like dance. She was pretty good at it. Donna was so wholesome I was a little surprised she was in Playboy. But I guess going to a New York art school changes a person's viewpoint.''

I hope I haven't embarrassed Lynn or her mother in any way here. I don't know what I would say to Donna's mother even if I got her on the phone.

Maybe just borrow a line from that old Herman and the Hermits song that went, ``Mrs. Jones, you've got a lovely daughter.''

Yep, that should do it. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Donna Evans, Playboy's May Playmate, is studying art in New York

after graduating from Kempsville High School in 1994.

Photo

PLAYBOY

Donna Evans' 1994 senior portrait at Kempsville High School. KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY PLAYBOY MAGAZINE