md_gov_SAUERBREY

FORMER STATE REP. ELLEN SAUERBREY

• Born Ellen Richmond in Baltimore, Maryland, she was the only child of working-class Democrats. Her mother worked as a stenographer, her father in Bethlehem Steel Corporation's Sparrows Point plant.

• Her family moved to Towson in Baltimore County when she was 13. The first morning in the suburbs, her mother told her their new paperboy was cute. Eight years later, after graduating from Western Maryland College with a degree in biology and English, Sauerbrey married the paperboy, who was by then an engineer.

• Sauerbrey had wanted to be a veterinarian but, unsure how to afford the training, became a high school biology teacher instead.

• Her husband, Wilmer J.E. Sauerbrey, an engineer who now works as a real estate broker, suggested they join opposing political parties. Following her parents' example, she registered as a Democrat but, in the early 1960s, switched her party affiliation to Republican.

• She got her first taste of big-time politics working on Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign in Baltimore County. Later, she won election to the county's Republican Central Committee and worked for a state delegate. In 1978, when her boss ran for the State Senate, Sauerbrey succeeded him and in 1986, she became minority leader.

• As a member of the House of Delegates for 16 years, Sauerbrey consistently voted against tax increases and opposed plans to expand state government. But rustrated with her party's lack of clout in the legislature, she concluded that only as governor could she translate her conservative vision for Maryland into reality.

• In 1994, Sauerbrey upset Rep. Helen Delich Bentley in the GOP gubernatorial primary. She headed into the general election with considerable momentum and came within 6,000 votes of beating Parris Glendening. However, she lost some goodwill and earned the nickname AEllen Sourgrapes@ when she continued to challenge the results long after the election.