AAUW TO HIGHLIGHT SOME OF HISTORY'S GREAT WOMEN.

Byline: Kermit Pattison Daily News Staff Writer

Beginning next month, a parade of historic women will come alive for schoolchildren of Ventura County. They will speak about their struggles to achieve and overcome the gender barrier.

Students will be visited by local volunteers who will impersonate the first woman physician in the United States, the founder of the Girl Scouts and the first African-American woman millionaire.

Organizers hope the lessons will bring the historic characters to life andspark interest in figures long overlooked in textbooks.

"It's trying to bring women who aren't known to us into the foreground,"said Paula Osterbrink, co-chairwoman of the women's history project for the Thousand Oaks branch of the American Association of University Women. "They're usually not mentioned in the history books, but we want to highlight them for our kids."

The annual program will begin in March throughout Ventura County elementary and junior high schools as part of Women's History Month.

Volunteers will dress up as the historic women and read a biographical monologue describing the highlights of their lives and impact onhistory. They also will lead discussions about the issuesraised in the lectures.

"History is presented from a European male point of view," said Linda Jordan-O'Connor, who coordinates the women's history program for the Simi Valley chapter of the AAUW. "Women's history profiles give children a fuller view of our past."

Volunteer adults will act out the roles for younger children. But older kids may take on the characters before their peers.

"They're learning about women in every aspect of life," Jordan-O'Connor said. "They also learn the hardships that women face. These girls did not know women were not allowed to go to college. When I told them Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman physician in the United States, was not allowed to go to college, they couldn't believe it. They were angry."

The Thousand Oaks branch of the American Association of University Women began the program about 10 years ago. The chapter has published a book of the collected scripts and lessons, Osterbrink said.

"The kids just love it," Osterbrink said. "They sit there mesmerized. In fact, they think you are that person. In the past, when a kid sees one ofour volunteers, they say 'there goes Amelia Earhart' They don't get that it's history and she's long gone."

Osterbrink said the AAUW sends out the scripts to about 100 schools acrossVentura County plus some outside the county. But the AAUW leaves it to theschools to find volunteers or students to play the characters, she said.

This year, the AAUW highlighted five women in the scripts:

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), the first woman physician in the United States.

Dolores Huerta (1930- ), co-founder of the United Farm Workers.

Maya Lin (1959- ), an architect and sculptor who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Juliette Gordon Low (1860-1927), the founder of Girl Scouts of America.

Madam C.J. Walker (1867-1919), the daughter of slaves who founded a cosmetics company and became the first African-American woman millionaire in the United States.

The AAUW will also give presentations on the five historic characters to the public at Borders Bookstore in Thousand Oaks on March 13 at 7 p.m.

For more information on the program, call [phone].