Sisterhood of the Air Force calls third sister

A month ago, Ava Tamosuinas of Wayzata faced a tough choice. The 18-year-old senior at Providence Academy, a private Catholic prep school in Plymouth, had won a full Naval ROTC scholarship to the University of Southern California. Aside from being located in a place where it's 70 sunny degrees most of the year, USC is the alma mater of her father, Darrell.

But Ava also had received an appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., which offered its own enticements, including state-of-the-art facilities, the stunning Rocky Mountains and the chance to follow the path of Amanda and Alexis, Ava's older sisters.

Ava chose the academy.

Amanda, 23, graduated from the academy in 2008 and is stationed in New Mexico working in logistics. Alexis, who will spend part of the summer at Aviano Air Base in Italy, will graduate from the academy in 2011, which means that she and Ava will overlap for two years. Ava heads to boot camp on June 25.

"There's always a natural curiosity about this," said Darrell, an independent consultant and crisis manager. "People wonder, 'Is one daughter just following the next?' I thought about that, too. But there is such a fundamental leadership component at the academy. Still, I'm hoping for a USC Trojan in graduate school."

Women have been accepted to the Air Force Academy since 1976, but their ranks remain small. Only 16 percent or so of all applicants are chosen; of that number, about 20 percent are female.

And while an Air Force Academy spokesperson calls the Tamosuinas ("Tam-o-shoe-nus") sisters' story "amazing," they are in fact not the first female siblings to share the honor. Eight families have had three or more female siblings at the academy, including two families that have sent four sisters there.

Few people have been more surprised to see all three of the Tamosuinas sisters wind up at the academy than their parents. Darrell and Linda moved to Minnesota from California 18 years ago and have no military background.

There was little hint of the path the girls would take as they grew up in Wayzata. They attended church, played sports and piano, ice skated on the pond out back, took family trips to Mexico and Lutsen, went to movies and out to dinner. The girls had lots of friends, but often preferred hanging out in each other's company. Until she moved out, Alexis shared a bedroom with Ava by choice.

"They're not wandering children," Linda said. "They do a lot with their family, which is good. But it makes us miss them more."

Does Mom worry? "Oh, my gosh. I am a little bit worried. Amanda would like to go to the desert. But she's been trained so well. She wants to apply it. They're in God's hands," Linda said.

'Break you down, build you up'

As a senior at Blake, Amanda was looking at colleges on the East Coast and considering pre-med and law when a family friend suggested the academy. "It was something different that I hadn't heard of," she said.

Her freshman year was tough. She rose at 4:30 a.m. every day during boot camp, ("not like a gentle knock and let's go to breakfast") and was on the move until 9:30 p.m. She walked in single file and dropped to the ground for push-ups for transgressions of protocol. She wanted to come home to visit a few weeks into boot camp but was talked out of it by her supervisors.

"The idea is to break you down, so they can build you up," said Amanda, who now jumps out of planes and, not surprisingly, no longer sweats the small stuff.

"In high school, you're stressed out about having a lot of classes. The academy teaches you how to handle everything at once and move on to the next thing."

Weighing the choices

Alexis watched her sister carefully. By her sophomore year at Providence Academy, she knew where she wanted to go. She also knew that, despite being smart and athletic, she was no shoo-in. With her dad, she started running with her boots on, working up to 5 miles. He bought her a pull-up bar and she worked until she could do one. By the end of boot camp, she could do about seven pull-ups, well in the range required of female cadets.

Ava didn't know what she was going to choose until the 11th hour.

"I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing it just because my sisters were doing it. It just seemed like the opportunities were greater at the academy. My dad was like, 'You definitely don't have to do this because your sisters are there!'"

She decided a few days before the academy deadline. "I'm completely confident with it," Ava said.

Kevin Ferdinandt, upper school director at Providence Academy, also thinks it was the right choice. "Ava is self-disciplined and fun-loving, with a great love of service," said Ferdinandt, who taught Ava and Alexis in his junior-year religion class and calls them "fantastic kids."

Ava says she plans to "get as much family and friend time as I can," before boot camp, where she hears she'll be limited to "undies, shampoo and letters from home." She plans to draw on her sisters' example -- and love -- on the tough days.

"I know it will be intense and a pretty big shock for me, being separate from my parents and having to go under these strict new rules," Ava said. "But Alexis can come see me whenever she wants."

Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350