New Traditions at Naval Academy : Minorities Now Make Up a Quarter of the Enrollees

The senior class president and the brigade commander, the two top offices at the U.S. Naval Academy, are currently held by black midshipmen.

Roger Isom, 21, of Monticello, Fla., one of nine children whose Charles Hillinger’s America

father farms 63 acres, is this year’s brigade commander. Kennon Artis, 22, of Washington, son of a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent Office, is senior class president.

The achievements by the two young men speak well for the minority program launched at the academy in recent years. In 1970, there were only 27 black midshipmen at Annapolis. Today there are 257. Although the academy was established in 1845, it wasn’t until 1949 that Wesley A. Brown became the first black American to graduate from it.

Artis was not only elected senior class president, he was elected president of his freshman, sophomore and junior classes as well. Elections for class president at the academy are highly spirited and competitive.

“This last election was really tough. My three opponents were all good friends,” recalled Artis, who had never run for an office before coming to Annapolis is his plebe (freshman) year. “I was never president of a high school class. I wasn’t involved in school government until I came to the academy,” he said.

On Track, Football Teams

Artis has been on the varsity track and lightweight football teams. He has been a company commander.

“I never had an interest in anything military until my mother and I drove a half hour from our home to see a parade at the Naval Academy when I was in high school. I liked what I saw. After I graduate in May, I hope to spend the next several years sailing the seven seas and driving ships,” he confided.

Isom, holder of the highest midshipman military command, has three older brothers and a younger sister in the Army. He is the first in his family to go to college.

“A Navy recruiter came to my small high school and told us about Annapolis. I applied and here I am,” said the tall midshipman who has maintained a 3.1 grade average and is an aerospace engineer major. He hopes to become a Navy pilot.

Isom has been a leader in the academy’s military programs ever since he entered the school. He was brigade commander of his junior class as well.

“These have been very exciting years for me, and I’m eagerly looking forward to my career as a naval officer. You can imagine how pleased and proud my parents are. Mother and Dad have come up from their tiny farm in Florida three times. They love this place as much as I do,” Isom said.

Of the 4,696 midshipmen enrolled at the Naval Academy, 1,162 are minorities--257 black, 256 Latinos, 209 Asian Americans, 28 American Indians and 412 women.

President Gerald R. Ford in 1975 signed legislation authorizing admission of women to the service academies. The first female midshipmen entered the Naval Academy in July, 1976, and graduated with the class of 1980.

Annette Schlutermann, 22, of Melbourne, Fla., is one of this year’s 78 female seniors. She received a presidential appointment as a daughter of an active serviceman. Her father is an Army staff sergeant with 24 years service.

“I applied and was not appointed, so I accepted a scholarship to the University of Miami,” said Schlutermann, a 5-foot-5, auburn-haired midshipman. “Toward the end of my first year at Miami I applied to the Naval Academy again. It is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. I decided to go for it. This time I got it.”

She said she hasn’t met any kind of animosity being a woman. “This place has enriched my life so much. It has been one adventure after another,” she said, describing helicopter training at Pensacola, Marine Corps training at Quantico and four weeks aboard a destroyer during summer training programs.

Every one of the 4,696 midshipmen currently enrolled came to the academy by appointment, the largest number congressional appointments, five from each of the 435 representatives, and five from each of the 100 senators.

In addition, there are midshipmen appointed from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Panama Canal. The vice president is entitled to name five midshipmen, the President 100 annually, all sons and daughters of career military members.

Other appointments come from the regular Navy and Marine Corps, from the Naval and Marine Corps Reserve, from military schools and ROTC programs. Sons and daughters of disabled veterans and of POWs, and sons and daughters of people awarded the Medal of Honor receive appointments, as well as 40 midshipmen appointed from foreign countries.

Of the 15,565 who applied for appointments to the Naval Academy for this year’s beginning class, 1,335 were accepted. At the end of four years, about 1,000 of these freshmen will graduate. The rest will drop out or fail.

Those entering must be at least 17 and not older than 21 years and 364 days. They must be single and remain single until they graduate. Every year, several midshipmen marry the day after graduation in the imposing, copper-domed, 80-year-old Naval Academy Chapel.

The 338-acre academy, at the mouth of the Severn River in Maryland’s historic capital of Annapolis, boasts of history and tradition.

Marines, such as Pvt. Eddie Sandoval, 19, of Wilmington, Calif., from the Academy Marine barracks, are honor guards every day in the Naval Academy Chapel at the crypt of John Paul Jones, father of the American Navy. The body of Jones has been enshrined in an ornate sarcophagus at the academy since 1913.

In his crypt are his commission, signed by John Hancock; a membership certificate in the Society of Cincinnati, signed by George Washington, and the dress sword presented to him by King Louis XVI of France.

Bancroft Hall, called “Mother B” by the midshipmen, is an 80-story, eight-wing structure housing the entire brigade, all 4,696 midshipmen. It’s one of the largest dormitories in the world. Freshmen and sophomores are berthed three to a room, juniors and seniors two to a room.

Bancroft Hall, named after George Bancroft, secretary of the Navy who established the academy 142 years ago, boasts one of the world’s largest mess halls. The entire brigade dines simultaneously, 12 to a table--everybody served within three minutes, so they say.

The grounds of the academy are dotted with classroom buildings, with spacious lawns and huge trees, with historic cannons, masts from famous ships and numerous monuments.

Every year the freshman class en masse attempts to scale Herndon Monument, a tall obelisk commemorating Capt. William L. Herndon, an academy graduate who lost his life in 1857 in a gallant effort to save his ship during a cyclone off Cape Hatteras.

Sophomores place a sailor hat on top of the monument, then grease the obelisk with 200 pounds of lard. Legend has it the midshipman who retrieves the hat will become the first admiral in his or her class.

A huge bronze figurehead of an Indian called Tecumseh, recovered from the ship Delaware that sunk at Norfolk during the Civil War, has been an academy landmark for more than a century.

Tecumseh is a midshipman’s good luck symbol. Midshipmen call the figurehead “God of C”--the academy’s passing grade. Tradition calls for a left-hand salute every time Tecumseh is passed by, and midshipmen toss pennies his way for good luck on exams and in athletic contests.

Of all the traditions, the most cherished is graduation day when friends and relatives assemble at the Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The senior midshipman of next year’s graduating class leads three cheers “for those about to leave us.”

Graduates reply with three cheers “for those we leave behind.” At the “hurray,” the graduates toss their midshipmen hats into the air.

As one would expect, the Naval Academy has an extensive sailing program designed to teach skills and knowledge of seamanship and the sea.

It boasts one of the finest sailing fleets in the world, including 54 Lasers, 30 26-foot knockabouts and a dozen 44-foot Luders yawls. The Sailing Squadron sponsors a number of intercollegiate regattas each year. The academy sailing team has won the National Collegiate Sailing Championship many times.

All midshipmen are on four-year scholarships, and they receive $480 a month in pay. But deducted from their paychecks are charges for laundry, barbershop, supplies and other personal services. They buy their own uniforms and purchase a computer, which takes about three years to pay off.

Plebes have about $30 a month left after all deductions; seniors, with some debts paid off, have as much as $300 clear each month. Many have a small nest egg set aside on graduation, savings from their monthly paychecks.

California has the largest number of midshipmen of any state--473, or about 1 in 10.

Brent Courier, 21, of Petaluma is a junior. He had wanted to go to the academy ever since he was in second grade. His father is chief of the Sonoma State University police.

“I played two years varsity football. I’m not playing now,” Courier said. “I’m making sure I keep my grades up. It’s tough. The discipline. The academic requirements. We all have to study every night for three hours, from 8 to 11. As a freshman, liberty is noon to midnight on Saturdays. That’s it. Seniors get weekends off.”

Frank Lugo, 20, a junior from Oxnard whose father is a psychiatric technician at Camarillo State Hospital, is one of eight children.

“The most important thing you learn is to budget your time to survive,” noted Lugo, who was a 3.7 student at Channel Islands High School.

Todd King, a junior from Camarillo, said he misses California’s “great weather.”

“It’s cold back here in winter and hot and humid in summer. The first year is the tough one. After that you get used to it.” His father is property manager at Point Mugu Naval Station.

In summer, midshipmen get a firsthand look at the seagoing Navy. They report to ships at naval bases around the country and throughout the world. In summer, following their first year, midshipmen go aboard ship, wear enlisted uniforms, sleep, eat and work with enlisted crews from the engine room to the bridge.

While juniors, they are introduced to flight training at Pensacola, to field training with the Marines at Quantico, to submarines at New London. Seniors stand deck watches and sleep in officers’ quarters aboard ship. Some enroll in foreign-exchange programs and spend four to eight weeks shipboard on vessels belonging to 24 other nations.

Midshipmen have a choice of 18 majors and graduate with bachelor of science degrees. They must serve a minimum of five years on active duty after receiving their commission. Most choose to make the Navy a career.