Capstone playmates?

TUSCALOOSA | Stephanie Stone expected to have trouble focusing in class after what she had just done.

Raised in a strict Lutheran household in Michigan, the 20-year-old University of Alabama sophomore said her family had no idea what she was up to.

But Monday, Stone had no regrets about posing for Playboy.

“You shouldn’t pass up on this type of experience," said Stone, who was the first of about 30 UA students to try out for the magazine’s 2007 Girls of the Southeastern Conference issue, set to hit newsstands in October.

The hopeful began trickling into the nondescript suite in a local hotel about 11 a.m. Monday.

They were met by Eden Orfans, a Playboy producer and spokeswoman who could have stepped from the pages of the magazine she represents, and David Rams, a photographer who looked as if he would be just as comfortable with a guitar strapped over his shoulder as the Polaroid camera he was using for test shots.

After a quick explanation by Orfans and the completion of the required legal documentation -- names, ages, dimensions, hometowns -- it was time to begin.

Some of the students said showing up for Monday’s casting call was their way of shedding the strictures imposed by a conservative, Christian upbringing, although most confessed, like Stone, that they had not told their parents.

Others, though, said that simply trying out for Playboy was fulfilling a dream.

“I think it’s a great experience -- especially a once-in-a-lifetime experience for growing up in a small town," said Tiffany Jarrell, 21, who attended Brookwood High School. “It you’re totally comfortable with your body, I’d recommend going for it. I mean, how many other opportunities like this can you get?

“It’s Playboy."

What this means to the men and women who head the university that these women are hoping to represent, however, isn’t clear.

The issue is billed as “Girls of the SEC," but Cathy Andreen, a spokeswoman for the university, said the school was taking no official position on Playboy’s visit to Tuscaloosa.

“It’s not on campus," she said, “and it’s something between the students and that organization."

For themselves, the students seemed indifferent, despite stories of previous UA students being chastised and even punished by their respective sororities for taking part.

About as many applicants are expected to show up today. Then, the models chosen based on the preliminary photos will be photographed at various locations throughout Tuscaloosa for the remainder of the week.

Stone, an aspiring lawyer who came to the University of Alabama because “I wanted to get out of Michigan," had never posed nude before, and was not sure her body would be good enough for the Playboy image.

Minutes after Rams had photographed her, Stone was visibly more relaxed than when she went behind the suite’s closed bedroom door.

“Actually, while filling out the paperwork, I was more nervous" than being photographed, she said.

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Heather Lynn, 19, grew up in Atlanta surrounded by brothers and male cousins. She described herself as a sports lover and “a huge daddy’s girl" but she admitted she hadn’t informed her parents of her decision to try out for Playboy.

“I’ll think about that later," she said.

Lynn said her parents also were strict (she once was punished for an entire summer after a bottle of alcohol was found in her bedroom), but that Playboy magazine also was delivered to her father each month.

“I’ve always liked Playboy," said Lynn, who’s majoring in elementary education. “I enjoy beautiful women just as much as anyone else. I think it [the magazine’s pictorials] is art, in its own way."

Lynn is engaged to a man she has known for about a year and a half. He stands behind her in the venture, she said, which helped her make the decision to disrobe before a total stranger.

When told that at least two other UA students who posed for Playboy in 2001, the last time the publication auditioned in Tuscaloosa, had gone on to pursue modeling careers, Lynn said she would not object if that happened to her.

“I gave it a shot," she said after emerging from her round of test shots. “I don’t know what I do next or where I go …, but hopefully they like me."

Sarah Barnard already earned one degree, from Auburn University, in technical theater. She enrolled this year at UA intending to earn one more in dance and human development from New College.

The 23-year-old acknowledged the stigma that the Playboy brand can mean in the South, even in a culture in which the much more salacious “Girls Gone Wild" videos are widely recognized. She also confessed that if she were still a student at Auburn, where her family lives and her friends are numerous, she likely wouldn’t have chosen to pursue this particular ambition.

But Barnard, who said she’s always been comfortable with her thin, wispy frame, said she doesn’t like being stereotyped as quiet and conservative because of her appearance.

And being in the pages of Playboy has “always been something I wanted to do," she said, visibly elated after posing. “It was like breaking the mold. I’ve always wanted to be a model, a dancer -- I guess it goes along with that."

Reach Jason Morton at jason.morton@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0200.