My best friend of 50 years, Michael Lodington Soares, 1952 - 2019, was a 1976 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, so I’m more familiar with the college than a civilian ought to be. I was, for example, an unmatriculated Keydet for a couple of nights until I was discovered by the Officer of the Day who suggested in the strongest language that I decamp before Lexington PD arrived on post. This I did. As a state school, the Institute gets away with a lot of folderol not tolerated at the federal academies. There are two remarkable bits from the school’s storied past, one to do with a poem, the other with a performance.
© 2024 John Oliver
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