As a high school student I had this fantastic music teacher, Mrs. Freeman,
but she had a small group called the--.
I can't remember the name of it but just a small group, maybe twenty singers maximum,
and I auditioned for that, got into that,
Tried out for a scholarship at UNC
and got accepted for a scholarship
and was among very few freshman women that were allowed at that time,
and in the South you were still a girl, you know.
And our curfew was 7:00. We had to be in the dorms, the doors were locked.
Not even holding hands on campus. I mean those--.
Like I said this was that transition. Within two years all these things--two or three years--these things were blown out of the water.
And I fought it. I mean I was a very independent spirit,
and I'm like, "But they--!" because the guys go by outside the windows going, "Nyah, nyah!"
And I'm like, but they get to! So, but I didn't know music theory,
and I look back and I think who in the world thought this was a good idea?
Some day I'll write it up because it was the classic freshman experience of everything going wrong.
So at some point I called my mom and I said, "I'm coming home," and she wisely got it.
She didn't question me or challenge me. She was like, okay, so my voice must have been really awful.
I came home, kind of recovered, and then came to State,
and my SAT scores were terrible but they wanted girls so badly because they just had started this liberal arts program,
and I can't remember the gentleman's name. He was there for many years in student financial aid.
He was a great guy.
He just really saw me through and the grants were generous back then, the scholarships and grants, what you got.
It was the defense--. Later the initials were kept the same but they were basically defense loans because we were--.
When Russia sent up the satellite suddenly it was about let's get people in colleges because we're just so far behind
so all of this money was made available. So as I look at my children and go,
it's not easy now, and they make this debt. I made virtually no debt out of college,
just virtually no debt, and it was because of that.
I got the grants and the loans and I was a female in the right place at the right time. [Laughs]
So when I came onto campus there were very few. It was not uncommon I was in classes where I was the only girl in the room surrounded by guys,
and it turned them to regular goofballs, I have to say.