Nevada's first lady finds passion in family, work

CARSON CITY ­-- In a big white house on an American elm-lined street about a mile from the Capitol, 16-year-old James and 15-year-old Maddy are expected to keep their rooms clean, do their laundry and get good grades.

Either Dad Brian or Mom Kathleen must read every night for 20 minutes with younger sister Marisa, 7. All the family members regularly walk or play with their four dogs, two cats, two guinea pigs and turtle. Sometimes they can catch a show on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. When the shows are too scary, Marisa crawls into bed with her parents.

These are the Sandovals, Nevada's first family. When they aren't attending James' basketball or baseball games or hauling the kids back and forth to dance classes, Dad works as governor and Mom serves as the family and youth inter­vention coordinator for the Children's Cabinet in Reno.

"We want our kids to have as normal a lifestyle as possible," said Kathleen Sandoval, who married her college sweetheart in 1990. "I think it is nice to have a family in the (Governor's) Mansion that can relate to other families. I need to work. We have a mortgage to pay (on their home in Reno). We balance a checkbook. We budget what we spend at Christmas. We are like any family."

Sandoval, 46, is the only first lady in Nevada history to hold a full-time job when her husband serves as governor, according to state Archivist Jeff Kintop. Her predecessor, Dawn Gibbons, had owned a wedding chapel and other businesses, but she sold them before Jim Gibbons became governor in 2007. Not since the Millers in the 1990s has the state's first family included school-age children.

U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show 71.3 percent of women with school-age children work. That compares with 40 percent in 1975.

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