Astute Pick: Nominee’s many qualities lauded

“She is truly a person for all seasons, possessing those unique qualities of temperament, fairness, intellectual capacity and devotion to the public good.” – President Ronald Reagan By J. Patterson O’Neill Daily News writer “Multifaceted” might be a better way to describe Sandra O’Connor, the nation’s first female Supreme Court nominee. She’s managed to master the difficult roles of wife, mother and professional,. apparently without a hitch. She’s also socially and athletically active. O’Connor has shot the rapids of several Western rivers, helped build her own home, raised three children and handled the pressures of a fulltime career. She’s a member of the board of directors of several non-profit Arizona organizations and belongs to at least one country club. O’Connor lives with her husband John, a Phoenix attorney, and a son in a sprawling rustic-contemporary Paradise Valley ranch house. The home is secluded and quiet, as is O’Connor. The couple built much of it themselves ahnost 3J yean ago, and her fingerprints still can be seen on the adobe walls. Her son Jay, 19, is & freshman at Stanford; Brian, 21, is a senior at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and Zi-year-old Scott is a Stanford graduate, and, as O’Connor put it, “now happily among the employed.” She plays tennis regularly, is an excellent golfer and reads extensively in her spare time, which she manages carefully Friends call O’Connor loyal, thoughtful and considerate. She shuns elaborate social functions