In her junior year of college, Frances Anne Hughes spent hours recording neat notes on index cards. Not all were for the term papers she meticulously researched. Hundreds of others formed an exceptionally detailed portrait of a neighborhood close to campus.

It was 1973, and Parris Nelson Glendening, a young professor she admired at the University of Maryland, was trying to put his academic theories to practice in the real world of local politics. His super-organized student helped by getting the names and addresses of voters he hoped to represent on the Hyattsville council.

"This was before computers, and she hand-copied every registered voter in my ward," Glendening recalls, still awed. "She worked one side of the street, and I worked the other."

A quarter-century later, while almost everything else has changed, Glendening is still campaigning with the same partner -- the bright, intense woman nine years his junior who became his wife and closest political adviser.

Weekdays, she's a Washington lawyer. Nights and weekends, she's Maryland's first lady, playing hostess at formal parties and traveling across the state to promote the arts and women's issues.

But neither job comes close in importance to Frances Hughes Glendening to the two men in her life: her husband, Maryland's governor, and their son, Raymond, a freshman at West Virginia University.

Right now, that means Frances Glendening, 47, is deeply involved in her husband's re-election effort, despite foot surgery that's slowing her down on the glad-handing circuit -- where by all accounts she generally outshines him.

The Democratic governor is in one of the tightest races in the nation, and his once-Republican wife is doing everything she can but copy voting lists. She often stops by the campaign office to share tips, preview television ads and discuss strategy.

"That's why I have circles under my eyes," she jokes. "I accompany him to some events, and I'm working full time, and I still do my events, the things in the community, because they're very important to me for personal reasons."

Considerable sway

For the Glendenings, her role is clearly a sensitive matter. Both insist that she maintains her distance from the daily operation of the state government. Yet friends and foes alike say that while she doesn't constantly interfere, she has considerable sway over policy.

Her influence, they say, can be seen in the governor's record hiring of women, his effort to eliminate the long wait for services by the developmentally disabled and his contribution to keep the famous Lucas art collection in Baltimore. He has favored abortion rights ever since she won an argument with him 20 years ago.

"Francie certainly has strong opinions," says Lance Billingsley, chairman of the University of Maryland regents and a longtime confidant of the couple. "But I don't think she gets involved in the day-to-day decisions. Let's take, for example, gun control. She would strongly urge Parris on a type of position, but she wouldn't draft the legislation."

Those who know the first couple agree that in the Glendening household, she's the natural politician.

"Pifflesniff Parris," as she used to tease him when they first met, often comes across as a bookish policy wonk. His wife is anything but stiff or reserved.

"I saw her at a garden party in Baltimore, and she was having a wonderful time, moving around, meeting people," says her friend Roz Goldner. "She knows how to work a room."

'Indefatigable'

Jeff Emerson, another friend and CEO of a managed health care company, says she's "indefatigable" and has a "rare understanding" of the political process. Even the governor acknowledges that his wife often displays sharper instincts, relates more easily to crowds, and sizes up allies and enemies more quickly.

"She's told me things, and invariably, she's right," he says. "She's more outgoing; she brings quite candidly far more warmth, maybe even excitement and passion. When we're together, I think it's a good combination."

It's been that way through all seven of his elections, from Hyattsville to the Prince George's County Council, to the county executive's job and finally the state's highest office.

"Frances Anne," as only the governor calls her, has helped his passage to each new office. It was she who suggested Kathleen Kennedy Townsend as his running mate in 1994, and she who later co-chaired his transition team, helping to pick much of the Cabinet.

Yet after her prominent part in the formation of the administration, which set off radio talk show comparisons to Hillary Rodham Clinton, she retreated from the public spotlight.

Her first news conference was to unveil 13 forgotten portraits of Maryland first ladies. Since then, she has sought publicity only for causes she cares about: art exhibits at the governor's mansion, a book on women in state history -- and most importantly, because of family tragedies, for hospice work and suicide prevention.

Politician's daughter

Politics may be second nature to her because she already was campaigning in red-white-and-blue dresses as a girl. When she was 3, her father, George Raymond Hughes Jr., a moderate Republican attorney in Cumberland, won a seat in the House of Delegates. She was 5 when he became the House minority leader, 11 when he entered the Senate.

Francie revered her father. She liked to surprise him by embroidering his initials on handkerchiefs, which he would show off in the State House. By high school, she knew she wanted a career in public service, which her father had taught her was "the highest calling."

Not surprisingly, her first job after college was in Prince George's County government. Today, she is a $101,000-a-year legal and policy adviser for the Federal Election Commission, where she has worked since earning her law degree in 1986.

Her interest in public service drew her to her political science professor at the University of Maryland. She took several of Parris Glendening's classes, then worked for his polling firm. They began dating after her 1974 graduation, and two years later, they married.

Before their society wedding, she offered to change her name or her party, but not both.

For two decades, Frances Glendening remained a proud Republican. But in 1996, increasingly disillusioned with the GOP's conservative tilt, she registered as a Democrat. She was able to vote for her husband in a primary for the first time last month.

Personal tragedies

In her early marriage, her life was irrevocably changed by personal loss.

Her father got out of elective politics after losing a 1970 bid for Congress and eventually fell into a deep depression. In October 1978, he committed suicide. Frances Glendening took on the responsibility of caring for her grieving mother, three younger sisters and brother.

Her mother, Patricia, was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer two years later. In 1987, six months before her mother's long, painful battle ended, her troubled 17-year-old brother died of a morphine overdose.

"It crushed me," she says, her voice low. "I always felt if I was a good girl, if I played by the rules and did things the way you were supposed to that everything would be all right. The hardest thing for me to learn was that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, there are certain things you can't control."

Her way out of grief, after seeking counseling, was to try to help others who felt helpless. She became active with the Hospice of Prince George's County and in suicide prevention programs; since 1990, she has served on the board of the Prince George's Suicide Prevention Center and Hotline.

Muriel "Murt" Foos, a friend and vice president of a state hospice group, tells how Frances Glendening comforted a 9-year-old boy, whose mother had died of cancer, at an awards banquet two years ago.

"He began crying, and she was the first person to jump up and give him a hug," Foos recalls. "He said he really missed his mom and that she had made the best cookies. Well, Francie went back [home] and baked him cookies."

Beyond her activism, the tragedies have made her fiercely protective of her family.

Throughout her husband's political career, she has insisted that he spend several nights a week at home. The couple tried to create as normal a childhood as possible for their son: eating breakfast together, going to the movies, taking family vacations. Now that 18-year-old Raymond is in college, she sends care packages, and the governor will interrupt anything he's doing to take his call.

"If I were to list her greatest achievement it wouldn't be attorney or first lady," says Peggy Zink, an old sorority sister. "It's her son."

As Maryland's first lady, Frances Glendening serves on the board of the National First Ladies Library. The new library in Canton, Ohio, presents the lives of wives of presidents and governors, both famous and forgotten.

Sipping tea one recent evening at the governor's mansion, Frances Glendening contemplates whether she has a favorite first lady. It's been a long, tiring day, and she's resting her foot, which still twinges after the recent operation.

She's impressed by Florence Harding, whose biography she is reading. But there have been so many remarkable women in the White House, she says: Eleanor Roosevelt, Mary Todd Lincoln, Jacqueline Kennedy, Rosalynn Carter, to name a few. It would be impossible to choose.

Perhaps that's appropriate, given her complex character.

There's the shrewd political strategist -- and the cookie-baking mom. There's the strong-willed lawyer -- and the self-confessed "recovering perfectionist."

She believes she's more relaxed than ever, yet remains strictly disciplined. She's a perfect size 4, and avoids the temptation of junk food. Four friends once gave her the same book: "Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much."

'Wind Beneath My Wings'

On the day he was inaugurated as Maryland's 59th governor, Parris Glendening interrupted his speech to embrace her to the strains of "Wind Beneath My Wings." He is fond of saying: "I wouldn't be here without her."

His wife judges herself by far more exacting standards. Though she no longer gets stomach aches over every mistake, she admits, "I measure myself a lot -- how did I do on this or that."

That may explain why she decides, after some thought: "It's not as if I want to be like this or the other first lady.

"I want to be the best Frances Hughes Glendening I can be."

Pub Date: 10/06/98