1. Cynthia Jeanne Shaheen was born Jan. 28, 1947, in St. Charles, Mo. Her father, Ivan Bowers, was in the shoe manufacturing business; her mother, Belle, was a secretary in their local church.
2. Shaheen graduated from Shippensburg University in 1969 with a B.A. in English and earned a master's degree in political science at the University of Mississippi in 1973.
3. Raised in a Republican family, she cast her first presidential vote for Nixon in 1968. At Shippensburg, she registered as a Democrat and became more politically active—successfully challenging a campus curfew that applied to women but not to men.
4. The first time Bill Shaheen asked Jeanne for her phone number, she told him to "drop dead." She agreed to marry him six weeks later.
5. She has been known to refer to her husband, Bill Shaheen, as the "first hunk."
6. The Shaheens have three children—Stefany, Stacey, and Molly. They also have six grandchildren—including Elle, who has juvenile diabetes. Shaheen has actively promoted stem cell research, mentioning her granddaughter's condition.
7. Shaheen enjoys two firsts in New Hampshire—she's the state's first woman governor and now the first woman senator.
8. In an interview given to the New Hampshire Sunday News in 2000, Shaheen listed some of her favorite things, including: food—barbecued chicken with french fries, movie—Casablanca, books—Gone With the Wind and The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
9. She is a direct descendant of Pocahontas on her mother's side.
10. She chose New Hampshire's Mount Washington, which she climbed in 1997, as one of her favorite spots in the state.
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Sources:
- New Hampshire Sunday News
- The Boston Globe
- Concord Monitor
- The Washington Post
- Christian Science Monitor
- The Union Leader
- Associated Press
- New Hampshire Business Review
Reader Comments Read all comments (4)
Don Leeman of NH 2:04AM January 24, 2009
Augo Knoke 8:25AM January 13, 2009
Don Leeman of NH 4:00AM December 30, 2008