Oprah_ A Biography - Kitty Kelley [202]
Oprah was determined to make the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls her version of Miss Porter’s School, wrapped up like the Ritz with a gymnasium, tennis courts, a beauty salon, a yoga studio, a wellness center, and a dining room with marble-topped tables, cloth napkins, and china, silver, and crystal, all of which she selected. She insisted on a six-hundred-seat amphitheater “for orators,” because “in order to be a leader, you have to have a voice. To have a voice, you need oration.” She demanded six labs, including two for science and one each for art, design, technology, and media. Each had to have the finest equipment, and her computer-filled classrooms had to have outdoor space, even “a reading tree.” All the dormitories had kitchens, and each room had a balcony with a large closet. “People asked me why it was important to have closet space, and it’s because [the girls] will have something,” she said. “We plan to give them a chance to earn money to buy things. That’s the only way to really teach them how to appreciate things.” For the construction of the twenty-eight buildings on campus, Oprah chose bricks of soft gold sand and personally selected every tile, light fixture, and door handle. She stipulated a ten-thousand-volume library with a fireplace and little cubicles containing soft socks so the girls could curl up comfortably to read. She decorated all the living areas with scattered silk cushions and real orchids. She chose two-hundred-thread-count sheets, white pillowcases embroidered with O, and fluffy duvets, all of which she personally tested for luxury and comfort. She selected uniforms for the girls, five pairs of shoes, backpacks—even underwear. She designed a flag for her school and said she would teach leadership classes in person and by satellite. She commissioned artwork from five hundred South African artists and filled every building with baskets and paintings and beaded sculptures to reflect the country’s rich tribal culture. Always concerned about security, she ordered double electric gates to be erected around the entrance of the school, with yards of electronic shock-effect fencing. A Venus Africa security van patrolled the grounds day and night, and no visitors were allowed inside, except families, and they were allowed only on specified weekends.
“Mum Oprah” vowed to build “the best school in the world” for the girls she now called “my daughters,” and she promised to support them so they could attend any university of their choosing. She selected the first wave of 152 students (eleven, twelve, and thirteen years old) from 3,500 applicants, each of whom had superior grades and demonstrated leadership potential. None came from families that made more than $787 a month, and most had lives ravaged by AIDS, rape, and disease. Some were orphans, and many lived on only a bowl of rice a day. “I know their story,” said Oprah, “because it is my story.”
Seeing herself in each little girl, she said, “I want them to be surrounded by beauty because beauty does inspire. I want this to be a place of honor for them because these girls have never been treated with kindness.… This will be their safe place, a place to flourish free of violence, abuse and deprivation—a place of honor.… I want their parents to know they can trust me with their girls.”
At that time, the girls’ impoverished parents saw Oprah as the personification of goodness, for she was giving their daughters a chance for a better life—a gift they could never afford. Only later would some feel anger and bitter disappointment. Oprah would have her regrets as well, and be forced to admit that she had spent too much time prettying her school and not enough effort vetting the faculty entrusted with protecting the girls. “I had been paying attention to all of the wrong things,” she said. “I built that