Salt Lake City's Heather Ure is among a record number of women who have been named Rhodes scholars.
The 21-year-old senior at Wellesley College was named Sunday as one of 18 women and 14 men who will travel to Great Britain in October 1995 for a year of study and research.For the third straight year, women outnumbered men in the competition for prestigious scholarships.
Seventeen women were named scholars last year and 16 women in 1992. The competition - created in 1902 - was opened to women in 1976.
The program's criteria include high academic achievement, integrity, leadership and athletic prowess.
Ure, a graduate of Rowland Hall-St. Mark's, says she "plans to study 19th-century English literature" at Oxford because British novelists - such as the Bronte sisters - are her favorites.
She was in town Sunday for a short break before heading back to Wellesley in Massachusetts to take final exams Monday.
"I am putting together a senior thesis now on creative writing including my own poetry and a novel," she said.
Her novel is based on the young arts community in Salt Lake City, something she should know about since her mother, Maureen O'Hara Ure, is a professor of art at the University of Utah.
Ure, who was born in Columbia, S.C., came to Salt Lake City with her parents 20 years ago.
Harvard University led the Rhodes field with six scholars. Princeton University followed with three students chosen. Twenty-three schools were represented among the scholars.
The 32 Americans were chosen from 1,253 applicants. About 60 scholars were chosen from 17 other countries.
The program, administered through Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., was established by the estate of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and South African colonist.