The names come back to them in flashes - trusted advisers, teachers who became lifelong mentors, fellow students who shared everything from class work to career dreams.

People like G. William Whitehurst, Ernie and Carolyn Rhodes, Gordon Wheatley, John Ramsey, Carol Shelton, Woody Griffin, Leland Peterson, Karl Knight, and more.

It's the people, after all, who continue to dominate the recollections of Old Dominion's first African-American students, now more than 30 years after their ground-breaking graduations.

They recall the heated political discussions with their fellow students and poetry readings over a cup of coffee. They remember plotting strategies in student election campaigns, staging zany gender-bending performances for an interfraternity talent show, catching rides home with their new white friends. They remember attending classes taught by faculty members who inspired and challenged, and a few who changed their lives.

They were students first, attending Old Dominion for an education and a college degree, not social reformers bent on breaking racial barriers. But, in the end, that's what they were - the first to forge a path for others to follow. As a result, other memories, not so pleasant, are there, too - the ugly racial slurs, thoughtless comments, stereotyping and the countless color barriers on an all-white campus just beginning to open its doors to blacks.

For Margaret Simmons, who earned a master's degree in English in 1966, and Ronald Horne, a 1969 bachelor's degree graduate in political science, blazing a path for other African-American college students was an experience not without its contradictions.

"It didn't take me long to realize I was alone . . . that I was one of the only - if not the first - African-American students on campus," admitted Simmons, today an assistant professor of English and director of ceremonial occasions at Hampton University.

"I always knew I represented the black people because I was one of them," she said. "I made friends with white students who told me they'd never interacted with a black person before. They said, 'You're different from those other black people.' But I told them, 'I am those black people . . . because I am a black person.'

"Maybe because I was young, maybe it was my confidence in humanity and belief in the goodness of people, but I never felt threatened," she added. "I felt we learned a lot from each other."

For Horne, now a retired Army lieutenant colonel who works as a program manager for a defense contractor in Washington, D.C., those days at Old Dominion are ones he only looks back upon with fondness.

"I had four fantastic years at Old Dominion," he said. "I loved every minute of it. My whole attitude at the time was that I wanted a different experience in college . . . and I got it at ODU. Certainly as one of the first African Americans walking around campus, it was an exciting time. I did not experience some of the things other African Americans were experiencing in other places . . . or not openly at least. I just related to people as any other college student did. And for the most part, they related to me in the same way."

Although cross burnings, civil rights demonstrations and other dramatic incidents of racial discord dominated the newspaper headlines in the 1960s, Old Dominion's pioneering African-American students faced their own personal battles against prejudice with thoughtfulness, dignity and calm practicality.

"I must say that most of the people in the English department made me feel very comfortable being there," noted Simmons. "I did not experience the kind of hostility that I saw in the library or the other places on campus I went. They were very supportive.

"But I was aware of the fact that others felt differently about me being there. There was a quote in the paper from someone in the administration who said, 'We will accept them, but we will not recruit them.' I was aware of those feelings . . . . I remember calling my husband after I had gotten a flat tire, crying. I thought someone had done it. But I don't know if that was the case. I've had plenty of flat tires since then."

Added Horne: "Shortly after classes started, (some administrators) got word to me and invited me to their offices to find out how I was doing. I realized then I was under a lot of pressure. But I made a decision that was very critical to me personally. I attended summer school after my freshman year, and got to know a lot of the students better. They began to see that this guy is here, he's for real, and so we began to talk and I made friends like any other student did. I never related any problems to being African American; I just related them to being a student."

Horne went on to become actively involved in campus life. Among his many activities, he served on the student class council for four years, as chairman of the Webb Center governing board, as sports editor of The Troubadour, as a member of the student concert choir and, eventually, as senior class president.

"When the other students saw me walk out on stage as one of the guys dressed up like a girl for the Interfraternity Council's Miss Amazon Contest my freshman year, they began to realize I was just another guy making a fool of himself."

A native of Portsmouth, Horne had come to the all-white Norfolk campus after graduating from all-black I.C. Norcom High School. After winning enough scholarship money from various sources to pay for tuition and books, but not enough for room and board, he decided Old Dominion was the best deal for his money.

Plus, Old Dominion College had G. William Whitehurst, the popular dean of students and political science professor at the time who would go on to serve 18 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before returning to the university. Whitehurst's political acumen was evident to Horne through the professor's weekly television program on WTAR-TV, "Dr. Whitehurst Reports."

"He was the main drawing card for my coming to Old Dominion," admitted Horne. "He had the expertise and knowledge to articulate exactly what was happening in our government at the time, and I wanted to be part of that."

After graduation and during Whitehurst's freshman term in office, Horne served as an intern in the congressman's office.

Unlike Horne, Simmons was a nontraditional student, married and the mother of three young children when she enrolled at what was then Old Dominion College. The family had recently relocated to Norfolk from Louisiana, after Simmons' husband accepted a job as a professor and head of the geology department at nearby Norfolk State College. Armed with a bachelor's degree in English from Gambling State University, Simmons was eager to advance her studies.

"My husband was very supportive, and encouraged . . . no, I'd have to say, pushed . . . me to pursue the degree at Old Dominion," she said. "They had just started a master's program in English and it was made to order for me. The 1964 mandate (from the Supreme Court to integrate educational institutions) had just come down, so the timing was right. I came to ODU for the sake of the degree."

Once there, she was embraced by faculty members and fellow graduate students eager to tackle the intellectual challenges.

"They did everything they could to make me comfortable," she recalled. "I developed some strong relationships with many of the students, and we became a close-knit extended group. And the faculty were very supportive. They pushed me to participate in professional opportunities and academic conferences. [Former English professors] Ernie and Carolyn Rhodes became my mentors . . . and truly enriched my life. Even today, they still hold a special place in my life."

There were some faculty members, however, who felt quite strongly about a black student's "invasion" of the all-white campus.

"Once a professor gave me back a paper and told me what a great job I'd done," Simmons recalled. "But when I asked what my course grade was, he said, 'A B, of course,' as though that was as it should be. It was my last course and I was told by others in the department to leave it alone. It wasn't going to matter. That's how he was. But I remember to this day how I felt." In the end, however, the experience was one Simmons looks back on with wonder.

"I found that all my relationships there were genuine, by and large. It was all about human beings, one to another. It was just the time; I was just the person. I just happened to be the first."

Added Horne: "More than anything else, I felt I was part of the total fabric of the university."