Inaugural March Seems Bound to Step on a Few Toes : Transition: Events likely to be a ringing success despite hurt feelings of traditional participants, bumped in the cause of diversity.

Unity and diversity are watchwords of President-elect Bill Clinton’s inaugural celebration, but it is becoming clear that the first theme is more popular in some quarters than the second.

The inaugural’s emphasis on diversity has not been a hit at the Culver Military Academy, in Culver, Ind., for instance, where the 80-rider equestrian team, which has strutted in 11 inaugural parades, was bumped to make way for such less traditional parade offerings as Elvis impersonators, a reggae band, a lawn-chair drill team and the Gay and Lesbian Band of America.

Also left out were cadets from the all-male Virginia Military Institute, which has been represented in the parades for decades. Some officials of the school suspect it was excluded because of its all-male admissions policy, although the Clinton camp denies that was the reason.

“What kind of message is Clinton sending to these brilliant young men and women?” grumped Rep. Steve Buyer, the freshman Republican congressman whose district includes Culver. “That being out of the mainstream is more important than pursuit of excellence?”

Such hard feelings are part of the turbulence the Presidential Inaugural Committee is trying to weather as it makes final adjustments to its five-day, 20-event program. With two weeks remaining before Clinton makes his grand entrance into Washington, the panel has been expanding some events, filling in details on others and trying to hold down a budget that could wind up $5 million over the original $20-million estimate.

In recent days, the committee’s bustling memorabilia store in northwest Washington has been cited for fire-code violations. During the holidays, the inaugural organization was forced to temporarily shut down a phone line for ticket orders when volunteer operators failed to show up.

But its biggest problem may be its own success. Tickets already are sold out for many events, while the committee is still trying to complete distribution of 70,000 tickets for the inaugural balls and to sort out 35,000 requests for press credentials.

Its marketing operation, meanwhile, is trying to handle 11,000 orders for commemorative license plates. (The plates are highly popular in California; “ELVIS” and many variants have already been snapped up.)

Because of demand, the committee has added one inaugural ball to the original 10 that had been planned. Among them will be a separate ball for Arkansans and another for Tennesseans.

The committee has expanded to two days a planned free festival on the Washington Monument grounds called “America’s Reunion” that will celebrate the variety of cultures in America through regional cooking, music and crafts.

The festival, set for Jan. 17 and 18, will take place under 20 heated tents spread out over a 30,000-square-foot area on the Mall. The layout includes five stages for live performances.

Californian entertainers will be well-represented. They include Los Comparos DeNaticano, with Linda Ronstadt, and rock groups Little Feat, Los Lobos and Save Our Youth.

The inaugural committee is expected to announce final plans soon for a “Presidential Open House” at the White House the morning of Jan. 21. The initial announcement raised some eyebrows as it recalled President Andrew Jackson’s disastrous open house in 1829 in which backwoods visitors tracked in mud and climbed on the mansion’s furniture.

This time, some 4,000 citizens are expected to be invited through a lottery system. The committee plans to ask would-be visitors to mail in postcards from which a guest list will be drawn.

Defending their choice of parade groups, inaugural committee officials said that they were chosen from 500 organizations and individuals that asked to be included. Most of the traditional military-style parade units are from Arkansas and Tennessee, said spokeswoman Kathleen McShea.

“It was tough to get in if your geography wasn’t right,” she said.

She made no apologies for the committee’s decision to include untraditional parade units.

“This is not going to be a repeat of the Bush-Quayle parade,” she said.

Among the more unusual entries are chain-saw jugglers and the Lawn Chair Precision Drill Team, of Vail, Colo. Its members wear sunglasses, khaki shorts and sneakers but drill with lawn chairs instead of rifles or flags.

The inaugural organization’s memorabilia store, the first such retail operation, has been so well received that marketing officials plan to open two more this week at Washington-area shopping malls. They are negotiating for other locations as well.

Since the store opened Dec. 21, shoppers often have endured waits in line of an hour or more, even on cold and rainy days. Officials in Washington were cited by fire authorities after an anonymous caller complained of fire hazards in the crowded shop, including exposed wires and piles of merchandise that blocked the exits.

The store’s most popular items have been saxophone-shaped pins priced at $15 for a brass version and $35 for a sterling silver one. The most popular T-shirt is one depicting Clinton playing the saxophone, emblazoned with the slogan, “Cure for the Blues.”

Marketing officials have set up a number, 800-262-2222, to sell other items and are about to mail from 1 million to 1.5 million catalogues to market inaugural memorabilia. So far, the most popular mail-order item has been the commemorative license plates, which are legally valid tags between Jan. 1 and March 31.