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Mark and Matt Chandler, Kristy and Misty
Goff, Blythe and Jordan Junkin, Aleksey and Artem
Mashnitskiy, Geoffrey and Matt Sharbrough, Gloria and
Veronika Viner: each has lived a life that at times
seemed like an echo of someone else’s. Each is a
twin.Like butter and toast, you can't have one without
the other, at least in the minds of some people. For the
first 18 years of his or her life each has been saluted, summoned and serenaded as Mark and Matt, Kristy and Misty, Matt and Geoff . . . : a familiar refrain for twins everywhere. But, when the opportunity came to break away after high school, to choose a different college and go their separate ways, the song remained the same. Today, they’re all singing the Millsaps fight song – with another 1,200 undergraduate students. Six sets of twins – five of them identical – chose to attend the same small college campus, at the same time. For twins, adopting each other’s beliefs and choices is “deeply rooted,” said Gloria Viner, 18, of Gautier. “It’s like peer pressure, but it’s twin pressure. And twin pressure is even more powerful.” In the face of that pressure, twins often cast about to express, or point out, their differences. “I guess some of the differences between me and my brother are that I’m bigger and stronger and more attractive,” said sophomore Matt Chandler, 19, of West Memphis, Arkansas. Matt and his twin, Mark, both play on the Millsaps baseball team, but Matt bats right and plays in the outfield, while Mark is an infielder who bats left. “And,” Mark said, “I’m better.” As for the Viners: “Everyone has mistaken her for me on campus,” Gloria said. “People who know me but not her will wave to her, and she won’t wave back. They don’t know what's going on.” There is at least one superficial way to distinguish one Viner from the other. “Her hair is longer than mine,” Gloria said. That’s not always enough for the twins. “Sometimes,” Gloria said, “I’ll do something just because it’s the opposite of what Veronika's doing." “When she started hating writing,” Veronika added, “that spurred me to write.” But, as much as they cherish their individuality, the desire to be together also spurs them on. Not only them, but the other sets of twins as well. For one thing, it is convenient – for their parents, and themselves as well. Also, it just seems to come naturally. And inevitably. “We had decided not to go to the same college,” Veronika said. “Then it came down to the last minutes. We had to choose, and I chose Millsaps. So Gloria just threw up her hands and chose Millsaps, too.” Once together on campus, the Viners gravitated toward each other even more. Veronika, who was going to major in biology, switched to chemistry: Gloria’s major. Actually, Gloria has a double major, including French. Which is Veronika’s minor. Beat goes on At Millsaps, the twin beat goes on. Blythe and Jordan Junkin, 18, of Natchez are both business majors. Sophomores Aleksey and Artem Mashnitskiy may be headed that way. “I started with biology,” Aleksey said, “but I may switch to business, like Artem.” Like the Viners, the Mashnit- skiy twins had decided at one time to attend different colleges. Natives of the Ukraine, they and their family left their homeland years ago and moved to the United States. The twins, now 19, graduated from high school in Franklin, Tennessee, where they finished fourth and fifth in their class. “Artem finished fourth,” Aleksey said. “He makes fun of me sometimes for that, but I got more awards than he did.” When they couldn’t decide on which college to attend, they realized that at least one had accepted them both: Millsaps. They returned the favor. Merit attention That so many twins made the same decision at more or less the same time was striking enough to merit a story in the college newspaper. “We had three sets of twins last year, and we thought that was kind of unusual,” said Anita Sumrall, director of student housing at Millsaps. “Up until last year, I don’t believe we ever had more than one set of twins at one time in the 10 years I’ve been here.” Two sets are sophomores, returning to Millsaps from the last academic year. Four sets are freshmen. That means of the college’s 558 underclassmen, 12 are schoolmates of their own twins. That number does not include separated twins. There’s at least one of those: Justin Langlois, 18, of Baton Rouge, whose fraternal twin, Josh, is attending Louisiana Tech on a football scholarship. It’s the first time the brothers have been separated, Justin said. It was mid-September when they last saw each other. “It’s weird at first,” Justin said, “but when I do get to see him, it means more.” Pros, cons Pairing twins in school and college classrooms has its pros and cons, says Jackson public schools psychologist Anita Craft. “One sibling may de- pend on another too much, if one is shy, for instance. Also, teachers, if they aren’t careful, may have the same expectations for one as the other. Most of the twins I’ve worked with like to be thought of as individuals. But we adults tend to say, ‘Have you seen them,’ instead of ‘Have you seen Ashley and Amber?’ I think many twins fight for their independence. On the other hand, you could also see this situation as supportive.” All this is not to say that the twins who attend Millsaps together are clinging. Three sets even decided not to room together, including the Goffs. “We thought we’d try to have the college experience,” said Misty Goff, 19, of Gulfport. Matt Sharbrough, 18, of Charleston, South Carolina, had a slightly different reason for not rooming with his brother, Geoffrey. “We just know how to push each other’s buttons too much,” he said. Matt Chandler had a similar, if not more sanguinary, thought about his brother, Mark. “If we roomed together,” he said, “one of us would be dead by now.” PREVIOUS PAGE | PAGE 1 OF 1 | NEXT ARTICLE |
