The Student Activities Council (SAC) will have its last event for the fall semester at the Rose Theatre today at 7 p.m. featuring Playboy Playmate Rebekka Armstrong.
The event is free and open to everyone who wants to hear about the consequences of unsafe sex, impaired judgment resulting from alcohol abuse and AIDS. A reception will follow the event.
Ideas and Issue Chairperson, Meredith Kimmel, said SAC chose Armstrong after they heard her speak at the National Association of Campus Activities Conference.
“We heard Rebekka Armstrong at the NACA conference, and we felt it was a good idea for her to come speak to the U of M students,” Kimmel said. “This would be a great message and an effective program for anyone who wants to be educated on unsafe sex and alcohol abuse.”
Armstrong said she wanted to be a Playboy Playmate ever since she saw copies of the Playboy Playmate magazine under her Grandfather’s bed.
A friend of the family passed her pictures to Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy , and Armstrong was chosen out of thousands of young women to become a centerfold.
As time passed, Armstrong said she became fatigued and she decided to go to a doctor for random testing, including an HIV test.
After she returned from a modeling assignment in Mexico, she found out that her HIV test came back positive.
Armstrong said as a teen she was not educated enough on protected sex.
She decided to tell the public about her disease in 1994 in a cover story for The Advocate.
She said she has chosen to dedicate herself to preventing others from making the same mistakes she did, such as unsafe sex and drug use.
The Playboy Foundation and Hugh Hefner also arranged for grants to be made available to Armstrong as part of a College Campus Safer Sex education program.
Although Armstrong has had HIV for nearly 17 years, she remains a Playboy Playmate representing the organization, and she continues to live a normal life.
