By MATT CHITTUM
ROANOKE TIMES

By the end of the day, the 'nulls' in the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership Program were no longer nothing.

When somebody hands you your lunch and it's a brown shrink-wrapped block labeled "POTATOES AU GRATIN" or "PORK WITH RICE AND BARBECUE SAUCE," it's a pretty sure sign you aren't in for an easy day. Indeed, the third freshman class in the history of the Virginia Women's Institute for Leadership Program was in for a tough one.

The "Meals, Ready to Eat" - MREs in military lingo - were for consumption during a 14-mile march out of the Mary Baldwin College campus and through the Augusta County countryside. The march was the culmination of an 11-hour workout.

"Don't eat the gum," warned Erin O'Connell, a freshman "null." The gum is really some "medicine stuff," she offered.

"Don't eat any of it," Kate Schultz of Alexandria added with unconcealed disgust.

All in all, though, it was a joyous occasion. The march marked the end of the 40 freshmen's "nullship," the lowly status afforded to nulls that requires them to address upperclass VWIL cadets as "ma'am," take the long way to their classes every day, wait until 2 p.m. to get their mail, and generally be treated as the underclass. It's the VWIL equivalent to Virginia Military Institute's "breakout," in which freshman "rats" end their harrowing six months of training by climbing up a muddy hill.

"It means we're no longer nothing," said Amberleigh Corell, a null from Louisa County.

"There needs to be some climax to all they've done together," said Mike Bissell, a VMI administrator and commandant of the VWIL program. The time and date of the planned climax was supposed to be a secret, but thanks to a few leaky teachers and security guards, the nulls knew their "Rites of Passage" ritual was coming.

"I got a wake-up call at 4 a.m.," Corell said. "I just unplugged my phone and went back to sleep."

The juniors and sophomores in the program, however, persisted with plenty of door-knocking to rouse the nulls and get them formed up for a little marching.

"Good morning, ladies," Bissell said at about 5 a.m. as the women, escorted by the upperclass training cadre, filed into the gym of the elegant Southern women's college. "Smiles, smiles. This is fun stuff."

Fifteen minutes, a few stretches and a few dozen yawns later, the nulls were running through the streets of Staunton, singing homage to dreadful PT - physical training.

"My grandma was 96, she did PT just for kicks," their voices echoed through the dark, uninhabited streets. "My grandma was 97, she PT-ed all the way to heaven."

Singing along was a pickup truck full of sick and injured nulls restricted from the day's physical trials.

"I want to run," said a frustrated Cate Mitchell of Alexandria. "I think we were all hating it this morning when they called us to get in the van and wouldn't even let us march over" to the gym.

Mitchell and the others cheered on their sister nulls just the same. "Come on, ladies," they shouted whenever the runners faced a hill on the four-mile run. Several runners dropped out early with dizziness and difficulty in breathing, but most returned before the run was over. Those problems paled next to the near-hypothermia suffered by a few nulls during last year's "Rites of Passage," a hike up snowy Elliot's Knob.

Bissell said the upperclasswomen wanted to repeat the ritual anyway, but were headed off by the administration. So they developed Tuesday's program. Michelle Payant, a junior from Dumfries, said they wanted a combination of physical and mental challenges. They also wanted some things they could build on as traditions for the budding program, which grew out of the battle to keep VMI all-male by providing a separate but equal alternative for women. The run ended around 6 a.m. Next came team-building games; a logic problem that took the nulls three times as long to solve as planned; breakfast; and calisthenics. Then around 9:30 a.m. the nulls strapped on their combat boots, smeared greasepaint on their faces and lined up for the long march.

They stowed their MREs in their camouflage fatigues, put their rubber replica training rifles at "port arms" and headed out of Staunton about 9:45. An hour into the march, their spirits were high. Maybe they were already exhausted and a little punchy.

Sophomore Kelly Thorkilson offered $20 to anyone who would kiss a sad-looking cow standing by the roadside.

"I'll do it," one null volunteered. "Pucker up, Bessie," another said.

Others sneered, leveled their rubber rifles at Bessie and made ricochet sounds with their mouths.

At the front of the line, Alicia Lacombe of Springfield gave up her rifle and took charge of a ceramic squirrel named "Willie." The VWIL mascot goes everywhere with the cadets.

Lacombe said she'd rather carry Willie than her rifle. She admitted a ceramic squirrel wouldn't be much help in case of an attack.

But then neither would a rubber rifle.

By the first break, at three miles, several women already had blisters. Carrie Wilmouth of Galax had a bulge on the side of her big toe the size of a kidney bean. She was treated by a classmate trained in first aid and pressed on. Meanwhile, the sick and injured moped and felt left out in the back of the pickup.

"I just wish we could march," said Michelle Hurdle of Virginia Beach, suffering from an injured knee.

By the sixth hour, the nulls' gait had slowed. Their rifles dangled across their backs by their straps.

A half-dozen nulls were forced to give up the march because of blisters. "They won't let me go," complained a dejected Wilmouth, whose blister got the better of her at about the seven-mile mark. Her foot was bandaged and propped on the dash of an escort van.

The others pressed on, though. The injured nulls who had been riding in the pickup were allowed to march the last mile.

A few minutes later, the nulls arrived back on campus at about 3:40 p.m., five hours and 52 minutes after they had started.

They looked haggard. Most of their green greasepaint had been sweated away. But they cleaned up in time to hear their names called and to walk through a saber arch held in their honor by the upperclassmen in a solemn ceremony on campus.

"Welcome to the family," one junior shouted.

Hurdle and a dozen of her classmates gave in to their tears at the end of the ceremony.

"I worked so hard and I thought I was going to miss it because I was hurt," Hurdle said, stopping to draw a long breath. "But I made it.