Stanford Classmate Remembers O’Connor as ‘Complete Person’

STANFORD, Calif. (UPI) – A Stanford classmate of Sandra Day O’Connor, President Reagan’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, remembers her as “a complete person, interested in everything.” Mrs. O’Connor received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford in 1950 and her law degree in 1952, ranking third in a class in which Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist was first. She met her future husband, John Jay O’Connor III, a 1951 graduate of Stanford, on the school’s prestigious Law Review board of editors. And she was elected to serve as a trustee of the university from 1976 to 1980. San Francisco attorney Atherton Phleger, a fellow law student, said he remembered her brilliance and the fact that she never isolated herself from anything. ” She was a complete person, interested in everything and not cloistered,” Phleger said. Stanford President Donald Kennedy said, “We’re very proud of her.” “It’s a superb appointment,” Stanford Law School Dean Charles Meyer said. “She’s a woman of great ability, tremendous balance and good political understanding .” Mrs. O’Connor went to work in the district attorney ‘s office in San Mateo County, Calif., after she graduated from law school, first as a law clerk and later as an assistant district attorney working in civil law. She went on to win election to the Arizona state Senate, becoming the first woman in the nation to serve as a majority leader in a state legislature, was elected a Superior Court judge and was appointed to the Arizona