Hometown stars - Sandra Day O'Connor

July 2, 2005

El Pasoans remember O'Connor as brilliant

Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times

EL PASO ‹ After Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement, El Pasoans who knew her as a teenager described her as brilliant, quiet and studious.

The outgoing Supreme Court justice was born in El Paso and attended Radford School. She was 16 when she transferred to Austin High School, where she graduated sixth in her class of 156 in 1946. She visited El Paso a few times after she became a Supreme Court justice and attended her high school's 50th reunion celebration.

In her later years, after having served as a state senator and court of appeals judge in Arizona and as a Supreme Court justice, she was described as "unassuming," "fun-loving," and "a superb dancer."

"She was so thrilled to be back here and to see everybody at the reunion," said Cecil Bear, a contemporary of O'Connor's during their high school years. "She said she looked forward to seeing the (Austin High) ŒA' letter on the mountain. She danced quite a bit at the reunion. When I mentioned that I could take her to the airport, she said, ŒI can ride the shuttle, that's no big deal.' That's how unassuming she was."

Elizabeth "Hondy" Hill McAlmon, an Austin High classmate and friend of O'Connor, said "we saw each other in the summers. I would stay at her family's ranch, and she would stay with me in El Paso. She was brilliant. She grasped ideas easily, and whatever she did, she did it perfectly, whether it was riding a horse or cooking. We played a lot of games, such as checkers and monopoly, and she always won."

"She was the voice of common sense on the Supreme Court," said Nancy Hamilton, another former schoolmate of O'Connor. Both belonged to the National Honor Society and Kalevala writing club during high school.

Hamilton said O'Connor's book, "The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice," does "a very good job of describing how the court works." The Supreme Court justice also wrote about life on her family ranch in the 2003 book "Lazy B: Growing up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest."

"Because of her prestigious career and connection to Austin High, student council president Robert Corral wrote her a letter asking her if she would be willing to lend her name to the district's new magnet school," said Larry Monarrez, spokesman for the El Paso Independent School District. "She replied that she would be honored and even promised to visit the (campus) when time permitted."

The magnet school will be called the Sandra Day O'Connor Criminal Justice/Public Service Academy, and is a collaboration between agencies that include the FBI, U.S. Border Patrol, El Paso County Sheriff's Department, El Paso Police Department and Fort Bliss.

Young Sandra Day divided her childhood in the 1930s and 1940s between El Paso and her family's Lazy B Ranch near Lordsburg.

Betty Jo Farnsworth of Lordsburg was a frequent visitor at the Day family's Lazy B Ranch when her daughter, Sue, was married to Sandra Day O'Connor's brother, Alan. She got to see a side of the first woman Supreme Court justice that was very different from her public visage.

"She's such an ordinary person when you meet her at the ranch, when she can just be herself," Farnsworth said. "She can be prim and proper when she has to be, but she can be lots of fun."

H. Vern Payne, a former chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, first met O'Connor when he was 6 years old and rode the school bus in Lordsburg with the future Supreme Court justice, who was then in junior high. Their paths crossed again at judicial training sessions in the 1970s, when O'Connor was an Arizona appellate judge and he was a New Mexico judge.

"She had a terrific reputation," Payne said.

In 1981, Payne thought he'd do a little lobbying for his former busmate when a vacancy opened on the U.S. Supreme Court. His opportunity came at a dinner in Washington, when he got into a discussion with an aide to Chief Justice Warren Burger.

"I said to him, ŒThey ought to get Sandra Day O'Connor.' The assistant's head whipped around and he said, ŒWhat do you know about that?' I said, ŒI know she grew up on a ranch out in southern New Mexico and Arizona.'"

Much later, Payne said, the assistant told him, "When you said her name, I thought someone had leaked her name. The president (Ronald Reagan) had mentioned her name as a possibility."

U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who will help to confirm a new justice, was a friend of O'Connor's. "She has been a wonderful role model for young women in America and around the world," she said. "Her tenure on the bench has set a new standard of jurisprudence."

"When Justice O'Connor was named to the Supreme Court, there was a lot of anticipation and excitement about her and what she would bring to the court," said U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. "I believe she certainly met and exceeded a lot of expectations. She brought a new insight and outlook to the court, and her pragmatic Southwest sensibilities are reflected in her opinions. She has served the court and the nation well."

Jeanne La Marca of the Lordsburg Liberal contributed to this story.

Day family photo album

More articles

Wedding Will Be Held On Dec. 29

Mr., Mrs. John J. O'Connor Return From Honeymoon

O’Connor is confirmed as justice

Austin High School honors 'her honor'   

Radford's most famous alumna drops in for a talk

Justice O'Connor returns to El Paso

Comments

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Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days, because days enshrined in memory are never lost.