B.C. High grad to command warship

Friday, July 22, 2005 | 11:03 a.m.

For Cmdr. Deidre McLay, it has been a 23-year trip from valedictorian of her class at Boulder City High School to being named the first woman skipper of a guided-missile destroyer.

Navy officials announced McLay's appointment Wednesday. The USS Farragut, a $1 billion warship, will be christened Saturday in Bath, Maine, where it is being built.

McLay, only the sixth woman to be named captain of a Navy fighting ship, said she doesn't think of herself as breaking gender barriers.

"To be selected commanding officer of a ship, to have the responsibility and opportunity to lead a team and serve our country, that's a big deal for any Navy officer, be it male or female," McLay told the Sun in a telephone interview.

"There have been many, many successful women ahead of me in the Navy who have done great service to our country and continue to do so."

Born in Las Vegas in 1964, McLay grew up in Boulder City where both of her parents were schoolteachers. Family vacations were spent traveling the United States with her parents and younger brother and sister, enjoying the outdoors.

After winning a Navy ROTC scholarship to the University of Colorado at Boulder, McLay studied civil engineering. But the lure of the open sea won out. After graduating in 1986 she served on the USS Samuel, a repair ship, deployed to the western Pacific and the Arabian Sea.

"When I was first assigned to the East Coast I was surrounded by trees and I found it claustrophobic," McLay said. "On the ship, the stars are very clear at night, and it reminds me of going camping with my family when I was a kid."

For Mary Clarke, who was a year behind her friend McLay at Boulder City High School, this latest accomplishment comes as little surprise.

"She was always a leader, even back then," said Clarke, whose maiden name was Leyba. "Deidre was a great role model, academically and socially. I'm very proud of her."

Clarke sees McLay occasionally at services at Faith Christian Church in Boulder City, where both their families are active.

"A lot of us have been following her career all along," Clarke said.

In high school McLay was active on the bowling, basketball and track teams, as well as Varsity Quiz, the Sun Youth Forum, the foreign languages club and the Honor Society.

And yes, she was also voted "most likely to succeed" by her classmates.

She also traveled to Denmark in her junior year as an exchange student, a trip that she said helped steer her toward her future career.

"That early exposure to international affairs and a global perspective, how the United States was viewed by the rest of the world, piqued my interest in travel, new places and new experiences," McLay said. "Plus, the confidence my parents had in me to let me study abroad at only 16 years old helped me to be independent." Maribeth McLay said she and her husband, Ivan, a retired junior high school science teacher, were delighted for their daughter.

"Deidre always set her goals high," Maribeth McLay said. "This is what she's been working for and what she's always wanted."

Maribeth McLay said she and her husband have visited their daughter aboard nearly all of the ships on which she has served, with the exception of during her tour of duty in the Persian Gulf several years ago shortly after the start of the Iraq War.

"I don't worry about her too much because with the kind of war we've got right now, the Navy has possibly the most comfortable conditions you can have in the military," McLay said. 'I would not want the responsibilities she's got, but I know she's trained for it."

As the first commander of the USS Farragut, which will eventually be home to nearly 400 officers and enlisted personnel, McLay was allowed to choose the ship's motto. The challenge was to choose something that reflected the ship's namesake, Adm. David Glasgow Farragut, a key figure in the Union's victory over the Confederacy.

But because the motto stays with the vessel for the duration of its service life, it also has to be something that inspires its crew, McLay said.

"I went with 'Prepared for Battle,' " McLay said. "It represents Admiral Farragut's heritage, but it also explains what we face in today's environment. We don't know where the battle will occur -- it could be a terrorist attack in our home country or an open-ocean conflict with another nation."

The Arleigh Burke class destroyer is the fifth Navy ship to bear Farragut's name. The 9,200-ton vessel built by Bath Iron Works will undergo sea trials in December and be commissioned next summer.

In the meantime McLay is getting to know the USS Farragut through frequent visits to the vessel accompanied by some of the other Navy personnel who have already been assigned to her command.

"A ship is more than its captain, it takes the talent of the crew," McLay said . "I'm fortunate to have a very talented, enthusiastic crew from all over the Navy working very hard to bring this to life."