Power Outage Fails to Faze First Lady in Claremont Talk

Hillary Rodham Clinton didn’t skip a beat Tuesday afternoon when a power outage plunged the stage into darkness as she accepted an award from Scripps College, the only one of the prestigious Claremont Colleges that enrolls women only.

“They say you have to be prepared for anything,” the First Lady ad-libbed as the microphone went dead and she raised her voice to be heard throughout the auditorium filled with 2,500 students, faculty, alumnae and staff.

“You know, it’s like my great mentor Eleanor Roosevelt said, it’s better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.”

The blackout, caused by a storm, sent Secret Service agents scrambling onto the stage, but it didn’t appear to fluster the First Lady, who in the last 15 months has faced increasing public scrutiny and controversy, including a lengthy grilling by the press last week regarding her Whitewater financial dealings and a $1,000 investment that yielded her $100,000 in one year.

Mrs. Clinton, who attended Wellesley College, another all-women institution, and went to Yale Law School with Scripps President Nancy Y. Bekavac, was in her element Tuesday afternoon, surrounded mostly by admiring, poised, educated and intelligent women.

She received the first Ellen Browning Scripps Medal, which the school inaugurated to recognize pioneering accomplishments by women. Bekavac announced that Scripps was also launching a Hillary Rodham Clinton Scholarship.

Sounding more like a commencement speaker than a First Lady pushing her husband’s domestic programs, Mrs. Clinton urged students at the women’s college to listen to their inner voices and reach their full potential.

“I have seen the many choices that young people are facing today and particularly the concerns that young women bring, how they will carve out their lives, make sense of all their responsibilities.

“There is no recipe book, no road map for one’s life. Each decision has to be made individually . . . every day. . . . I want all women to be given the respect they deserve for the choices they make,” the First Lady said.

She told the assembled crowd that some of her own college friends became mothers and homemakers. Others never married or had children but instead devoted themselves to careers. Many struggled to balance both worlds.

“If they are satisfied and live their life with integrity, then that is the right choice for them,” Mrs. Clinton said.

The First Lady also described her admiration for two women from an earlier age whose accomplishments have inspired her--Ellen Browning Scripps, the newspaperwoman, entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded Scripps College in 1926, and late First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Barbara Perry-Lorek, class of ‘87, was one alumna who flew down from her home in Northern California to watch what she called a historic event.

“I’ve followed Hillary and Bill Clinton since before they were elected--I mean before he was elected,” Perry-Lorek said. “I thought she was so straightforward and forthcoming; it just increases my respect for her.”

Sitting in the next seat, her mother, Beverly Miller, leaned over to add, “She’s my she-ro.”