Mrs. Ruppe (pronounced ROO-pee) may seem an unlikely candidate to head the Peace Corps. She had little related experience when President Reagan chose her, but she co-chaired Michigan's Reagan-Bush State Committee and did know Washington and Congress, being married to Philip Ruppe, a Republican who for more than a dozen years was the Congressman from Michigan's 11th District. Restoring Political Popularity An energetic woman of 62 years, she has done much to restore the corps to political popularity. Timothy Carroll, head of the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, remarked that Mrs. Ruppe has been ''nicely bipartisan'' and has kept the organization's spirit alive. Sargent Shriver, the first leader of the corps, said Mrs. Ruppe deserved ''immense credit,'' as did Congressional prodding, for rebuilding at a time when Government budgets have been under intense pressures. Mrs. Ruppe also has a personal interest in the corps: one of her five daughters was a volunteer in Nepal.
"The Peace Corps, is it still around?" people ask Loret Miller Ruppe, who has been its leader since 1981
Washingtion Talk: Volunteer Organizations; Yes, the Peace Corps Is Alive and Full of Vigor
By DAVID RAMPE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: June 16, 1988
LEAD: ''The Peace Corps, is it still around?'' people ask Loret Miller Ruppe, who has been its leader since 1981, longer than anyone else.
''The Peace Corps, is it still around?'' people ask Loret Miller Ruppe, who has been its leader since 1981, longer than anyone else.
The Peace Corps is not only around; it is doubling in size and, after years in relative obscurity, Mrs. Ruppe is beating drums to get the word out. She is looking for volunteers with specialized skills in forestry and fish ponds and in forming small businesses to spend two years in a poor country.
She has also come up with novel ways to attract experienced people as volunteers, through tie-ins with dental schools, three-month tours for farmers and by encouraging older people to participate.
The corps, a darling of the liberals when it was created by President Kennedy just weeks into his Administration, had some difficult middle years. It started fast, building to more than 15,500 volunteers by 1966. Bill Moyers, in a history of the organization, summed up the mystical calling. ''The Peace Corps is to the American Government what the Franciscans in their prime were to the Roman Catholic Church: a remarkable manifestation of a spirit too particular and personal to be contained by an ecclesiastic (read: bureaucratic) organization.'' Vietnam War's Impact
But the Vietnam War, unpopular at home and abroad, sent the corps reeling. Paul Theroux, the novelist and travel writer, who was a volunteer in Malawi, remembers the corps as being surprisingly hawkish. The number of volunteers withered, to under 6,000 by 1976.
Then the group lost its independence under President Nixon, merging into a broad volunteer group called Action. It had 7 directors in 10 years. Its budget remains far behind the levels it reached in the 1960's, considering the effects of inflation.
But now the agency is rebuilding and, if it is not close to regaining its broadest reach, it is at least attracting firm bipartisan support. It has also managed to develop a better definition of its mission. The corps, once again independent, is working to increase its volunteer network to 10,000 people by 1992, from about 5,200 today.
The group expects to be operating in 66 countries by the end of the year, with half its volunteers in Africa. Its universe is a bit erratic; it does not include one of the countries most in need, Marxist-ruled Ethiopia, nor is it in China, although that may come soon.
Mrs. Ruppe (pronounced ROO-pee) may seem an unlikely candidate to head the Peace Corps. She had little related experience when President Reagan chose her, but she co-chaired Michigan's Reagan-Bush State Committee and did know Washington and Congress, being married to Philip Ruppe, a Republican who for more than a dozen years was the Congressman from Michigan's 11th District. Restoring Political Popularity
An energetic woman of 62 years, she has done much to restore the corps to political popularity. Timothy Carroll, head of the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, remarked that Mrs. Ruppe has been ''nicely bipartisan'' and has kept the organization's spirit alive.
Sargent Shriver, the first leader of the corps, said Mrs. Ruppe deserved ''immense credit,'' as did Congressional prodding, for rebuilding at a time when Government budgets have been under intense pressures. Mrs. Ruppe also has a personal interest in the corps: one of her five daughters was a volunteer in Nepal.
One thing she has done is to recognize that host countries want skilled volunteers. While English teachers still have an important place, the corps is emphasizing such things as fisheries, sanitation, nutrition and forestry and ''micro-enterprises.'' A Mirror of the Nation
This is not easy at a time when mathematics and science students are in short supply in this country, and when the American farm population is a third of what it was in 1960. ''Volunteers mirror what is going on in our country,'' Mrs. Ruppe said in an interview in her 12th floor office, which overlooks the White House.
That means it takes novel efforts to recruit. At Harvard University, the dental school is letting fifth-year students spend six months in the corps, instead of the standard two years. A farmer-to-farmer program will send 50 Americans abroad for three to six months. Financial concessions are offered to students who graduate with heavy debts. Rutgers University, the University of Alabama and Boston University are offering programs combining work on a master's degree with service in the corps. Opportunities for Young People
In New York City, 16 public high school juniors recently spent two weeks abroad with the corps in an effort by the organization to make young people aware of the opportunities it provides overseas.
Another drive is to bring in older, more experienced recruits. The average volunteer is 30 years old, but one out of eight is over 50, and the older volunteer is said to enjoy considerable respect overseas.
Among recent volunteers who speak warmly of their experiences in the corps is Peggy Piaskoski, who taught English in Nepal, the Himalayan kingdom where per capita income is $160. She went to where the roads stop and then kept going, trudging for 16 hours through a rhododendron forest and stunning terraces, to a village two days away from any other American. Ms. Piaskosky, who now does recruiting for the corps in New York, describes it as ''an adventure that will probably stay with me for a long, long time.''
Another recent volunteer who worked in Ghana and Togo, Robert Rodriguez, said the greatest challenge was to achieve something that left a lasting imprint. The first six months, he said, you survive and get used to strange surroundings, then you spend a year working on a primary assignment - in his case teaching physics - and also on ad hoc opportunities. The last six months, he said, is to train local people to carry on. It doesn't always work, and that is frustrating, but he said ''you're there as an agent to help them do what they want to do. The country knows eventually what is best for itself.'' Benefits for Volunteers
Aside from altruism, the volunteers, and American society, are supposed to benefit in practical ways. The corps teaches some 200 languages and dialects. It provides experience often useful in later careers, facilitating commercial, governmental and cultural contacts, in the third world.
John W. Sewell, president of the Overseas Development Council, a private group specializing in third-world issues, said that over the years the Peace Corps and similar groups from other affluent countries have had an enormous beneficial effect on illiteracy, infant mortality and other problems, but that the benefits have been ''very unevenly spread.''
The corps provides a ''very useful part of a spectrum of needs,'' he said. A Cadre of 120,000
''It's terribly important as a channel to keep Americans involved in the third world in a way good for the third world and good for us at an extraordinarily low cost,'' he said. ''And it has given us a cadre of 120,000 who have lived and worked in the grass roots in the third world and now are emerging into positions of decision making in our own society.''
Dr. William B. Walsh Sr., who heads Project Hope, which for 30 years has trained medical workers, said of the corps is ''really doing superior work now.''
Mr. Shriver, now the president of the Special Olympics, would like the corps to be more ambitious. ''When I left in '65,'' he said, ''we had 13,000 in the Peace Corps.'' Getting back to 10,000, he said, is not enough. ''The only missing ingredient is a shortage of money, a pittance. It's like a vintage wine everybody would like to get, but there aren't enough bottles.''
