Marty Gordon
Contributing writer
Virginia Military Institute has become very familiar to one Christiansburg family as the fall session gets underway. Molly Straub, 18, has become the latest to join the VMI ranks.
Her sister, Maggie, graduated in 2016 after being the first woman from Montgomery County and the second from the New River Valley to be accepted to the school.
Their father, Charlie, is a member of the class of 1963, and their uncle, Joe, was a member of the class of 1965. But the family connection doesn’t stop there. Molly’s grandfather, Charles, attended the school and is a member of the football hall of fame.
The school dates to the mid-1800’s and boasts 1,713 students as of this year with 195 being female, which were officially brought into the school in 1997, being one of the last all-male schools to do so.
VMI, which has been labelled “West Point of the South,” offers 14 majors and 23 minor areas of study with students taking to or not to military service following graduation.
An estimated 11 Rhode Scholars have graduated from the school since 1921, and in 2015, VMI ranked fourth nationally in the “Top Schools U.S. News and World Report” amongst military academies.
Following in her family’s footsteps has put a lot of pressure on the latest Straub freshman, but at the same time, it has given her a sense of pride.
“Being a legacy has also motivated me at times where I wanted to change course and just attend Virginia Tech. Their support has been never ending through this process and I’m extremely grateful for that,” she said.
According to Straub, people automatically assume she chose VMI because of that legacy and her dad expected her to go. She said those assumptions are very wrong.
“I’ve grown up around VMI my entire life, so that drew me more to the idea of attending, but I truly didn’t see myself at any other college other than VMI,” she said. “I really like the structure of the school and how it prepares you for your future. I’ve had multiple alumni tell me if you can go four years at VMI, you can do endure just about anything else. VMI also offers an once in a lifetime opportunities that I wouldn’t be able to have anywhere else.”
She applied to the military school as “non-commission” but is leaning toward a career in the Air Force and plans to study economics and business.
