The summer before my wife, Betty Gail, entered her senior year of college, she and four sorority friends hit the road to Washington, D.C., in a red Cadillac.

The group's ringleader, Scooter, had worked the previous summer in Washington and had planned the whole itinerary for the trip: a daily schedule of where they would stay, what sights they would hit, where they would eat, even what clothes they should wear for each occasion.

Betty Gail had sent an advance copy of the itinerary to an aunt who lived near Washington and who was one of the scheduled stops. The aunt predicted, after marveling about Scooter's organizational skills, that one day they would all be attending Scooter's inauguration as president of the United States.

The aunt wasn't too far off.

Friday, Scooter - also known as Dr. Frances Lucas-Tauchar - was inaugurated as the 10th president of Millsaps College.

Betty Gail and I were there to celebrate with all the friends and admirers Lucas-Tauchar has acquired during her days as a student at Mississippi State and the University of Alabama, and as a student affairs administrator at those two schools as well as Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, and Emory University in Atlanta.

Lucas-Tauchar's elevation to the president's job at Millsaps was the fulfillment of what her ever-expanding circle of friends long felt was in the stars.

Lucas-Tauchar had the job in her bloodlines. Her father, Dr. Aubrey Lucas, is the much-respected retired president of the University of Southern Mississippi. Before relocating to Hattiesburg, he was the president of Delta State University, and Scooter spent her high school years in Cleveland. The 44-year-old Lucas-Tauchar has inherited her father's lanky frame, love of higher education and engaging sense of humor.

During her inauguration speech, she credited a relative's divine intervention for landing her the top post at the Methodist -affiliated institution. Her aunt, Louise Ginn of Jackson, and Ginn's friends at Galloway United Methodist Church had prayed during the interview process that the Millsaps trustees would settle on Lucas-Tauchar.

"And if I don't perform to their liking, they can pray me out of the job as well," Lucas-Tauchar said, eliciting hearty laughs from the crowd assembled in the Bowl, the azalea-bordered enclave in the middle of the 1,200-student campus.

Lucas-Tauchar replaced a Millsaps institution in George Harmon. Harmon led the academically prestigious liberal arts college for 22 years and is credited with rescuing it from the financial peril that set in during the 1970s.

The first woman president in the 111-year history of the college, the vivacious Lucas-Tauchar will be a distinct change from the staid Harmon. At Thursday night's inaugural ball, she was right in the middle of the line-dancing. Nine months into her administration, the students, faculty, staff and alums are gushing about their leader.

In her acceptance speech, Lucas-Tauchar pledged to continue the Millsaps legacy of "unrelenting pursuit of truth, courage regarding social justice and academic rigor."

She recalled the brave stands of earlier Millsaps presidents in defending academic freedom and attacking racial bigotry. During the 1920s, the college stood up to Theodore G. Bilbo, the demagogic governor and U.S. senator who tried to stop the teaching of evolution in Mississippi. In 1965, Millsaps became the first institution of higher education in the state to voluntarily integrate.

The college sometimes paid a financial price for its courage, losing students and the support of donors. It won, though, the admiration of the progressive voices in the state. Hodding Carter Jr., the late Pulitzer Prize-winning Greenville editor who defended Millsaps during the civil rights struggle, called the college "perhaps the most courageous institution in this nation."

Lucas-Tauchar is not afraid to ruffle feathers herself. She added her support Friday for the proposed new state flag, which had earlier gotten the endorsement of the Millsaps trustees as well as Methodist Bishop Kenneth Carder. The married mother of two also called for greater tolerance and acceptance of gays, a cause for which she received a national award at Emory.

College presidents, Lucas-Tauchar believes, have a moral responsibility to speak out on issues of importance. However, they have been often cowed into timidity by the increasing emphasis on fund-raising in their jobs, afraid to tackle controversial issues that could alienate donors and politicians.

Lucas-Tauchar and Millsaps are a great match. She is not one who is easily intimidated, and Millsaps is a school with a noble tradition of defending independent thinkers, including in the president's office.

A comment by Lucas-Tauchar in an inaugural publication was pure Scooter: "I would rather be a president for a short while and be completely true to my honor and the values I believe in, than be a president for decades and sell out constantly to the whims of public opinion. I won't do that."