[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 11, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1240-S1242]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                    TRIBUTE TO ERICA MICHELLE PITTS

 Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, each fall, Senators and 
Congressmen turn to the enjoyable task of submitting nominations to the 
U.S. Service Academies. This year, like every other, my office was 
flooded with applications from qualified young men and women--students 
with excellent academic records, students whose extracurricular 
activities would drive the most patient parent crazy, students who 
donate endless hours to community service projects. However, rarely do 
I see a young person possessing all of this and more.
  This year I proudly nominated Erica Michelle Pitts, of Louisville, 
KY, to the U.S. Military Academy, as did Senator Wendell Ford and then-
Congressman Mike Ward. There are many adjectives that can be used to 
describe Erica--poised, accomplished, brave, athletic, energetic, but 
even combined they do not adequately portray her. A senior at Saint 
Francis High School, Erica's headmaster Thomas Pike describes her as 
``a delightfully different young person.'' Counselor Kit Llewellyn sees 
her as a ``risk-taker'' and admires her integrity.

[[Page S1241]]

  Erica's military career dreams began at the age of 6 when her 
stepfather took her for a tank ride. At the tender young age of 8 she 
began working for her mother's boss formatting computer disks for $5 an 
hour. Entering as a seventh-grader at the respected Saint Francis, she 
was immediately placed in the freshman class, where, lacking a girls 
basketball team, Erica played on the boy's team. She has participated 
in a Russian exchange program, the Duke University Talent 
Identification Program, and served on the Courier-Journal High School 
Round Table. And, amidst her participation on the academic team and the 
yearbook staff, Erica works part-time at the Louisville Science Center 
yearround.
  As you can see, Erica's childhood has been far from average. 
Notwithstanding, she has grown into a graceful young woman whose lofty 
dreams have been realized. Hoping to enter the Judge Advocate General's 
Corps after her years at West Point, Erica aspires to serve on the 
Supreme Court or be elected President. Both goals are well within her 
grasp.
  Mr. President, please join me in honoring this outstanding young 
Kentuckian who has a bright future in the U.S. military. I ask that an 
article which recently appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal be 
printed in the Record. The author does a wonderful job of capturing 
Erica's charm and enthusiasm.
  The article follows:

                          Getting to the Point

                            (By C. Ray Hall)

       At first blush, the most interesting thing about Erica 
     Pitts is this: Barely 17, she is headed for the United States 
     Military Academy to join West Point's legendary long gray 
     line.
       It will probably be the grayest thing that has ever 
     happened to her. So far, her life has been like a 
     colorsplashed, abstract work of art in progress.
       Erica Pitts has been interesting for a long time. She was 
     interesting even in the womb.
       ``I was named after a soap-opera character,'' she said. 
     ``Because I was trouble. My mom went into labor and so she 
     went to the hospital.''
       False alarm.
       ``They sent her back home. Then I was about ready to pop 
     out so they called the ambulance. I was almost born in the 
     ambulance. I was almost born outside on the way into the 
     hospital. I was almost born in the lobby. I was almost born 
     in the elevator, but finally they got her to a delivery room 
     and I was born. I made life a little difficult for her.''
       Hence the name, Erica: ``Yeah, Erica Kane. Because I was 
     trouble.''
       Not even a minute old, and her life was already a 
     cliffhanger.
       Next scene in Erica's life: the beginning of an unlikely 
     romance. At Fort Knox, of all places. In a tank, of all 
     things.
       ``It started when I was about 6. My mom had married my 
     stepdad. He was in the Army and he took me for a tank ride 
     one day and I just thought that was the coolest thing. I 
     admired the discipline in the Army.''
       Next scene: Erica gets her first paying job, earning $5 an 
     hour to format computer disks for her mom's boss at the 
     Internal Revenue Service. She is 8.
       Next scene: Erica is stepfatherless, owing to divorce. She 
     and her mom, Pamela Scott, are living in Louisville. Erica 
     masters public school effortlessly. ``I was so used to just 
     showing up for class, reading the newspaper during first 
     period and not doing any work all day and still getting an A 
     in every single class I took.'' So her mom takes Erica to St. 
     Francis, a downtown school of high academic reputation and 
     equally stratospheric cost (tuition up to $8,140).
       Headmaster Thomas Pike recalled, ``I remember her and her 
     mom coming in and her talking about not being academically 
     challenged, talking about being an environmental lawyer or 
     biochemist. This is a seventh-grader. Just a really bright, 
     lively 13-year-old, and she has been lively and bright ever 
     since . . . a delightfully different young person.''
       St. Francis took her and let her skip from the seventh to 
     the ninth grade. (``A double bonus,'' Erica said.)
       ``Her life has always been action-packed,'' said school 
     counselor Kit Llewellyn. ``She's a skateboarder, a volleyball 
     player, a basketball player. She volunteers regularly. . . . 
     She has worked on literary magazines, so her literary 
     analysis is strong and indepth. . . .
       ``She's kind of a risk-taker. She likes to start things. 
     She participated in crew (rowing) when it was founded. She's 
     the first female from this school to entertain the idea of 
     applying to a military academy.''
       And yet, somewhere in that swirl of action, there's a 
     cerebral center.
       ``I guess what stands out with me for Erica is her 
     integrity,'' Llewellyn said. ``I was her sponsor at Calvary 
     Episcopal Church when she went through the confirmation. For 
     her age (then 15), her questions and her depth of 
     understanding, what she was pursuing in her belief and in her 
     spiritual self, was very strong. Well-thought-out and very, 
     very calm in her approach.''
       Oh. And did we mention she wants to be president?
       Of the United States. Like the current occupant of the Oval 
     Office, she likes lawyering. And, like Bill Clinton, she went 
     to Russia at a tender age, as part of an exchange program.
       Erica was nominated to West Point last year by then-
     Congressman Mike Ward. For the physical test, she returned to 
     Fort Knox, the scene of her first infatuation with the Army. 
     She passed the exam, which includes running, throwing a 
     basketball while on your knees and hanging on a chin-up bar. 
     Some girls immediately drop off the bar. She held on for 31 
     seconds.
       The audience included Lt. Col. Don Miller, an Army 
     reservist who serves as a West Point liaison (and, in another 
     life, helps run a Louisville brokerage). After interviewing 
     her, he wrote to the academy, ``Erica is a very goal-oriented 
     young lady with aspirations of becoming president someday. . 
     . . Erica has excellent people skills and appears to possess 
     good leadership traits. Her mother raised Erica alone and 
     this has resulted in sacrifice, and yet has developed her 
     sense of commitment.''
       So this is a 17-year-old of greater complexity than most. 
     During her trip to Russia, she bought a fur hat. She felt bad 
     about it when she realized rabbits had died to decorate her 
     head. She thinks the country spends too much on defense. She 
     clashed openly with a 10th-grade teacher, but she has a kind 
     word even for Adolf Hitler. (``He was psycho, but he was a 
     brilliant, brilliant ruler.'')
       This is not your father's West Point cadet.
       ``She's a free spirit,'' said Bryan Walde, the man who 
     teaches her calculus, chemistry and basketball at St. 
     Francis. In her graduating class of 38, the animal-loving, 
     defense-cutting, coffeehouse-and-concert habitue might have 
     been voted least likely to go to West Point.
       ``I heard that a lot,'' she said.
       `` `You were the last person I thought would ever go 
     there.' A lot of the people I know are not really anti-
     government, but they don't like people telling them what to 
     do. I don't really like it myself, but I do need the 
     discipline. I would love to have the discipline. And it's one 
     of the best schools in the country. Who would turn that 
     down?''
       West Point told her the price of the education awaiting 
     her. ``They valued it as $200,000, which I wouldn't doubt, 
     because I think West Pointers can easily top people who go to 
     Harvard.''
       That's obviously the kind of talk they like to hear on the 
     cliffs overlooking the Hudson River. Not that they actually 
     like to hear much talk at all from first-year cadets, or 
     ``plebes.'' For a while at West Point, she will speak only 
     when bidden. Too bad, for she has lots to say. To wit:
       On her willowy yet well-fed frame of 5 feet 10 inches, 120 
     pounds:
       ``I eat a lot. This morning for breakfast, I had a 
     cheeseburger, two pancakes and a cinnamon roll. . . .
       On love, sex and all that:
       ``I manage to stay friends with all of my ex-boyfriends. 
     It's really strange. I think partially because there's never 
     any reason for either of us to be really bitter. I don't 
     sleep with anybody. I just decided no sex before marriage. So 
     I never had to worry about sleeping with somebody and then 
     the next morning they just totally ditch me. There's never 
     any big thing to get really mad about. It's just a bunch of 
     little things that lead up to you saying, `You know, maybe we 
     shouldn't be together.' So you can just go back to being 
     friends.''
       On her idea of cool wheels:
       ``I want a big Dodge Ram truck as soon as I can get a 
     car.'' (She calculates that that will be three years hence, 
     with the down payment saved from her West Point stipend of 
     $6,600 a year.)
       On her mixed parentage, the result of a college romance 
     that never led to marriage. A delicate matter?
       ``It never has been. People have asked me about that for a 
     long time. They've asked me if I was mixed and it's never 
     bothered me. I've never really worried about it. Yeah, my 
     dad's white, my mom's black. . . . It's never been a big deal 
     to me.''
       On her twin ambitions, of being a lawyer and a 
     psychologist:
       ``I love to argue. That's what appeals to me about being a 
     lawyer. And I love using words . . . to get a point across. I 
     want to be a psychologist because I'm so used to doing that: 
     There are so many people with problems. My friends always 
     come to me for advice.''
       What's the best advice anyone gave her?
       ``You've got to learn to choose your battles and not fight 
     every single one. That's some good advice I got from my 
     mother. . . . For a while, every time somebody did something 
     I didn't like, I was ready to argue with them. I didn't get 
     into fistfights or anything, but I kind of verbally berated 
     my teacher sophomore year, sometimes in front of his class. 
     He didn't like that very much. That's when I learned to start 
     controlling my temper. I felt kind of bad, although I think 
     he kind of deserved some of that, although in front of his 
     class was really mean.''
       On the prospects of harassment or hazing from macho 
     military males:
       ``The sexual harassment thing, I think I would have the 
     guts to just stand up and say, `Hey, I don't like it. Stop.' 
     Being hazed and stuff like that, once it got to a dangerous 
     point where people were setting me on fire, I would just have 
     to like fight back, period. I would not allow somebody to set 
     me on fire

[[Page S1242]]

     as part of a hazing ritual. I think I'm strong enough to 
     handle anything that might be thrown at me as a hazing 
     ritual.''
       Hazing? Been there, done that, in a non-incendiary way. On 
     a basketball court, of all places.
       ``My favorite moment came freshman year,'' she said. ``We 
     didn't have a girls' team yet, so I had to play on the boys' 
     team. We were playing against a team that was very, very, 
     very chauvinist. . . . I got in with about a minute 40 left, 
     and they were not treating me very well. At first my 
     teammates wouldn't even pass me the ball, and finally one of 
     'em did. I just stood back behind the three-point line, shot 
     and it went right in. Swish. It was perfect. We still lost 
     the game, but I felt better.''
       Next scene in Erica's life: November 1996. The IRS 
     transfers Erica's mom to Nashville. ``She and her mother have 
     been a team through the years--her mom with pretty high 
     expectations and Erica living up to them,'' said Llewellyn, 
     the St. Francis counselor.
       Erica stays behind to graduate from her school. She lives 
     with her grandma, Ellen Pitts. ``She's been pretty great. I 
     have my own loft, and it's really nice. It's not very big, 
     but it's nice. I've got a computer and a desk and my futon up 
     there, and that's all I really need.''
       For now, at least, she dreams in a loft. But soon enough, 
     the dreams will be aloft. And Erica Pitts' life will get even 
     more interesting.

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