When Mike Leavitt first saw Jackie Smith she was wearing an orange dress and sitting on a sofa across the room from him. They were in church. It was July in Cedar City. So that's probably why his brain started sizzling. From the time he espied her until the meeting was over, he couldn't think of anything except how they could meet.
Today, nearly a quarter-century later, the Leavitts sit together in the library of the Governor's Mansion and laugh about the transparency of his opening line. "How do I know you? We've seen each other someplace before," he said to her.She told him she was from Cache County, just in town for the summer, acting in the Utah Shakespearean Festival. He told her he was from Cedar, a college student.
He invited her to join him and his brothers, that evening, for a canyon cookout they'd been planning. Then he raced home and told his brothers to get dates and help him plan a canyon cookout.
The cookout went well, he says, smiling, looking satisfied to recall the beginning of this particular campaign. Next, he invited her to lunch. It was there, on their second date, that he decided never to call her again. "I realized I was in over my head," he says.
Translation: She was pretty. She was talented. She'd just been named first runner-up to Miss Utah. He didn't want to get his heart broken.
He didn't think he had a chance. She'd told a friend of his that she wouldn't be getting serious about anyone in Cedar City, since she was accepted to graduate school at the University of Utah and would be leaving in the fall.
But Smith wanted Leavitt to call. When he didn't, she told a friend of his she wanted him to call. The friend ran into Leavitt that night at a swimming party. He convinced Mike Leavitt that the I-don't-want-to-get-serious message was not intended for him. Specifically not intended for him.
Great news. But Leavitt stayed cool. He says, "I pretended to swim around for 8 or 10 minutes before I raced to the phone and called her and said, "What are you doing? I'm not doing anything tonight!"
So they dated each other, but other people, too, into the fall. Smith put off graduate school. She began to notice a certain level of irritation in Leavitt's voice when he'd ask her for a date and she was busy with someone else. She stopped dating other guys.
They got engaged. The next summer, they got married. It all went so smoothly, she says. They lived in a tiny $95 a month apartment. He went to school full time and worked full time and she taught elementary school. They saved for a house.
The Governor's Mansion was the furthest thing from their minds. You ask yourself what you would have done if you'd known, she says. If someone told her she would be first lady if she married Mike Leavitt, would she have run screaming in the opposite direction?
He smiles at her. He is waiting for her to answer her own question in the affirmative.
But she doesn't. Being first lady has been challenging, she says. She's had to stretch and grow. "Not without some pain," she says. But now, she says, she can almost say she's glad it happened. He looks surprised. "This is a big moment," he says. She says, again, "Almost."
He says, "This would not have been Jackie's doing but she was willing." With his support, she's been able to do the job of first lady her own way, she says.
He says, "The job needs to mold to your family situation." He says she hasn't compromised at all: She puts the children first. Period.
"I go to a lot of things alone in the evening," he says. He seems surprised to report, "There is no excuse needed. I say, `Jackie is at home with the family,' and people understand."
Mike Jr., the oldest of their five children, is on an LDS mission. Taylor, the next oldest, is about to leave. Then there will be just three at home - Westin, Chase, Anne Marie - ranging in age from first to ninth grade. The children are doing well right now, she says, but that doesn't mean she can turn her attention away. She knocks on wood when she says they are all doing well.
It's not that she's not interested in politics. As a matter of fact, she was president of a Young Democrats group when she met Mike Leavitt. Her father was a politician, too. He served on the Newton town council, the board of equalization. As she was growing up, she met senators and congressmen and her family talked politics and issues.
As Utah's first lady she can choose her own issues. She's chosen GIFT, the Governor's Initiative on Families Today; immunizations, aiming to get every child in the state immunized by age 2; and the Centennial Values Campaign, getting the average citizen committed to making Utah a caring state.
The state does expect certain things from the first lady. For example, whenever a group wants to meet in the Governor's Mansion, either the governor, lieutenant governor or first lady must be present.
Still, she's the only one of the three who is volunteering her time. Being a volunteer gives her a certain latitude. She can set her own schedule.
As the conversation progresses, Mike Leavitt is called out of the library. Jackie continues alone, explaining what she has learned about being married to a politician.
She has had to realize the demands of the job he has chosen are very real. She can't expect him to choose the work and not choose to make the time commitment. She's learned to be flexible, she says. It didn't come easily.
"I can't punish him for the expectations I have which are unrealistic," she says. Such as her expectation that the family should be able to eat dinner together.
Recently she introduced the keynote speaker at a parenting convention. The speaker talked about how helpful it is to sit down and discuss expectations before you marry. She realized she and Mike had not done this, but if they had, she would have said, "I expect the whole family to eat together every night."
Her father liked politics, but his main job was farmer. He worked at home, so of course he was home every night for dinner, she says, laughing. She grew up thinking her family's ways were the normal ways. But governors usually aren't home as much as farmers are.
Awhile back she came to this conclusion: "Mike is basically a congenial person. I should try to return the favor."
She is content, now that the family eats dinner together on Sundays. And she and her husband try to eat lunch together every Thursday. No matter what else is going on, they say, the two of them do manage to take a walk together most every day - even if they are walking at 11 p.m.
When a fire seriously damaged the Governor's Mansion in 1993 the Leavitts moved back to their family home. Even though the mansion is restored now, they are staying put. Oh, they might do some family sleepovers in the mansion, but basically a house in a neighborhood suits the children better.
Stop over on a Friday afternoon and you'll see why. Bicycles litter the driveway. Some of Chase's friends stopped by to toss a football. Go in the backyard and you'll see one of the friends standing on the garage roof, retrieving the aforementioned football.
Taylor is in the house, studying at the kitchen table. Anne Marie and Westin are on the patio, chatting with Leavitt's security guard. The governor is in the house changing out of his suit and tie. Pretty soon, everyone converges in the backyard for a game of basketball.
Basketball is not one of their main family activities, says Jackie Leavitt. They are much more likely to play a board game. Mike Leavitt also likes to take the children golfing.
Even if they are unaccustomed to pickup games, the basketball goes smoothly. Big kids pass the ball to younger kids. Dad and older brother do some tricky shots and make everyone else laugh. It seems almost effortless the way Mom and Dad make sure everyone is included in the game.
The ease of the game seems a metaphor for their long marriage. They know they've been pretty lucky, they both say, to have chosen someone who had similar values and whose values didn't change over time. Says Mike Leavitt, "I have thought of this a lot, how amazing it is that you make a decision that important at that time in your life, when you are only 22."
It was chemistry that first brought them together, he says. But it was their complementary personalities that made the whole thing work.
He likes to focus on the future, he says. She is a person who lives in the present and makes the most of what is going on every day. That quality makes her an exceptionally good nurturer, he says. It allows her to study, to practice her music, to give herself completely to whatever she is doing.
He didn't think she'd ever focus on him. He didn't think he had a chance to win her heart until she let him know he did. He says, "Her affection for me was a great confidence-builder." It still is.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Running mates
A profile of Olene Walker, Mike Leavitt's lieutenant governor running mate, is on Wednesday's page B1. Shari Holweg, Jim Bradley's running mate, will be profiled in Thursday's Deseret News.