The Princess Wife : Married 18-Year-Old Mother Is on Homecoming Court in Ojai

Like the other four senior princesses at Ojai’s Nordhoff High School, Veronica Velasquez will be escorted down a red carpet before thousands of spectators during halftime at tonight’s football game.

Unlike the other princesses, 18-year-old Veronica’s cheering section will include her husband, Rony Velasquez, and their 3-year-old daughter, Melanie.

Veronica--who fell in love, married and had a child when she was 14--is probably the first teen-age mother in Ventura County to be voted homecoming princess, according to school officials in the county.

She juggles housework, mothering, a part-time job and a full academic load at school.

But she doesn’t think she’s special.

“I think I’m pretty much a simple person with an extraordinary situation,” she said.

Veronica said she gets by with a lot of support from her husband, the grandparents who raised her, and her mother and other family members who live in Ojai.

Some of her classmates at Nordhoff agree that it’s no big deal that one of their senior princesses happens to be a wife and mom.

“I don’t see her any differently at all,” said Jessica Mills, 16. “She acts just like we do.”

Nordhoff Assistant Principal Susana Arce said she didn’t even know Veronica had a baby until the child was more than a year old.

And “there are probably a lot of kids that don’t know” still, Arce said. “Nobody here has really made a big deal about it.”

Veronica and the four other senior princesses were chosen by schoolmates out of the 99 girls in their class.

The others are: Liz Drost, Alison Kerr, Laura Maguire and Michelle Wells. One of them will be named homecoming queen tonight, based on a schoolwide vote taken earlier this week.

“I know if I win or lose I’m going to cry,” Veronica said.

The young mother, who has a B+ average, works on the school yearbook staff and has won an academic letter for her French studies. But this was the first time she ran in any school election.

Some of Veronica’s friends and teachers say that while she fits in at the school of 1,055 students, she also stands out.

“A lot of people put her on a pedestal” because she is so responsible and mature, said Mishauno Woggon, 17, Veronica’s best friend since sixth grade. “She doesn’t go out on the weekends and party like most kids do.”

Mishauno said she’s seen few instances of students teasing Veronica about her situation.

“Sometimes in French class these really immature boys say, OK, Mom,’ ” when Veronica urges her classmates to get to work, Mishauno said.

Leslie Ogden, Veronica’s French teacher, described her as “an uncommon individual, there’s no question about it.”

“She’s somebody who finds a way to make it all work,” Ogden said.

Veronica and her husband Rony, 23, who works as a merchandise processor at Patagonia Inc. in Ventura, initially lived in Ojai with her grandparents, but they now have their own two-bedroom apartment.

About 6:30 every morning, when other teen-agers are being awakened by their parents, she’s rousing her husband, and preparing her daughter for preschool and herself for high school.

After school, she picks up Melanie, pays bills, runs errands, cooks dinner and cleans house. When Melanie is in bed, Veronica, who plans to major in business at Ventura College next year, does her homework.

It doesn’t slow down on weekends. She works as a cashier on Saturdays and Sundays at a local hardware store.

But Friday and Saturday nights belong to her family. That’s why the senior princess has no plans to go to the homecoming dance Saturday night.

Veronica said she wouldn’t encourage other girls to follow in her footsteps because most teen-age mothers probably wouldn’t get as much support as she does from her husband, friends, and family.

“I don’t feel this is something everybody could do,” she said.

She doesn’t regret that she’s missed the usual high school social life of parties and dating.

But she will miss high school itself.

“The pressure at home is heavier than school,” Veronica said.

“This is where I see my friends,” she added, waving her arm toward the school yard.

“I can be a kid, almost.”