Its a big deal if you have a parent who is a pioneer, but for Kim Broome, it was an even bigger deal that her mother didnt see it that way.

About thepioneerpart, that is.

But thats exactly what the late Annette Chandler Broome was, and her classmate, Harry Coleman, was, too.

Next weekend, students of every color and from every corner of the globe are donning caps and gowns for West Virginia Universitys 138th Commencement. Ceremonies will be May 11-13, and a complete schedule of events may be found online athttp://www.wvu.edu/commencement/.

Mountaineer country was decidedly more monochromatic in 1955, but the campus was getting there.

It was a year after the landmark Brown v. the Board decision that outlawed segregation in public schools and institutions of higher learning.

Now, a few black students did attend WVU in the days before 1954 and Brown, but that was mainly to take graduate courses that werent offered at the traditionally black colleges and universities.

And Jack Hodge, who would go on to a successful newspaper career in Baltimore, did become the first black undergraduate to earn a degree at WVU , when he was awarded a bachelors in journalism in 1953a year before Brown v. the Board.

But while Hodge and the others were exceptions, Broome and Coleman, as the first black students to attend in a new era, were the rule. They would walk across Woodburn Circle that fall of 1955 with books and class schedules in hand, just like everyone else.

And that, said Dr. Lillian Waugh, a retired WVU historian and administrator with the Universitys Center for Womens Studies, was significant.

Their landmark was desegregating the campus,Waugh said.They opened the gate to undergraduate enrollment for all.

Two years later, in June 1957, the pair would put on their own caps and gowns and reach out for the diplomas they earned as the first students of color to see their education through at WVU , post-Brown v. the Board.

Broome would be the first black woman to earn a degree here, and Coleman would follow Hodge as the second African-American male undergraduate to have a WVU diploma on his wall.

It was a bachelors in home economics and nutrition for Broome. Coleman earned his B.A. in sociology, with minors in education and history.

�€~Mom, you were the first

Ask Kim Broome about it today, and the daughter of the pioneer will give a little chuckle.

Thats because she didnt know for years that her mother had been the first black woman to graduate from WVU . She found out in 1990 when her mother was invited back to campus for the dedication of the Center for Black Culture, which was founded to recognize and enhance the African-American experience at the University.

It was like, �€~Whoa, Momyou were the first,said Broome, who works as a chef in Indianapolis, Ind.But, really, it wasnt surprising that she wouldnt have said anything about it. She wasnt about �€~definingherself that way. She was about working hard and making a good life for her family.

Annette Broome was a clinical dietitian by trade, which is why her daughter found a home in the kitchen very quickly in life. Along the way, Kim Broome said, her mom cooked up a perfect recipe for the positive advancement of race relations in the country by always taking the high ground.

That means more than ever today, Broome said, since her mother is no longer with her. Annette Broome died April 5 of this year at the age of 72 in Phoenix, Ill., where she had made her home and her career for the past four decades.

My mom grew up in Morgantown in full view of WVU ,she said.The University was literally in her backyard, but she couldnt go there for years and years. When she got the chance, she was grateful. �€~Adaptable,is a good word to describe my mother. She could fit in anywhere.

Not that it was always easy, Broome said. The racism she sometimes encountered on campus and other places she went after graduation still stung. But she turned it into that aforementioned character lesson, and she passed it along to her daughter and son.

It would have been really easy to get angry and bitter,Broome said.But she would tell my brother (Michael Broome, also of Phoenix, Ill.), and I, �€~You cant change it, and you cant beat people up for it. People are gonna be people. You just have to learn how to let your own light shine through.

�€~It was a proud, proud day when I got that diploma

Harry Coleman took that credo literally. Hes now the Rev. Harry Coleman, and the retired Methodist minister came to WVU in 1955 on the GI Bill, after transferring from the Johnstown, Pa., branch of the University of Pittsburgh.

Like Annette Broome, his welcome on campus was a little mixedbut, as he puts it, if someone would extend a hand, he would extend his. For others who werent kind, he would turn the other cheek, then walk away.

I couldnt let a lot of things get in the way,said Coleman, who is now 77 and back in his hometown of Piedmont, Mineral County, after several years as a clergyman and United Methodist church administrator in Indianapolis.One of the things that really saved me at West Virginia U was the Wesley Foundation.

Broome would even attend social events there, too, Coleman said, and he would occasionally see her in the pews of Morgantowns Jones Methodist Church, where the budding minister would deliver sermons on Sundays.

Like Kim Broome, Colemans three grown sons didnt know his WVU history, either.

He went on to seminary school at Boston University before following his faith to the Midwest. In turn, he told his sons to follow their hearts and to always look for the good in people, no matter what.

It worked. His eldest, Harry II, is a communications director for a major telephone utility. Middle son, Timothy, is a key administrator at a leading pharmaceutical company, and his youngest, Joseph, handles communications for a top law firm in Washington, D.C.

Coleman drew a lot on his WVU experience to preach that sermon of success, he said.

For me, it was about keeping the faith, and setting goals. It was about opportunity. It was 50 years past, but for me, it doesnt seem like that long ago. I think, for the time, that I had a very fair experience at West Virginia. Each experience enriches your life, and it was a proud, proud day for me when I got that diploma.

The collective experience of Broome and Coleman should be shared and celebrated, Waugh said.

They are pioneers,she said.Its always hard to be the �€~first.They carried the hopes and dreams of their parentsgeneration, and they lived the best they could for the generation that came after them. Thats monumental.