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By Virginia Young

Post-Dispatch Jefferson City Bureau

Catherine Hanaway has been driving toward a goal for the last few years, but it's not the one most people know about.

Sure, she masterminded the campaign that put Republicans in charge of the Missouri House for the first time in 48 years.

Sure, colleagues last week selected her as the first woman House speaker in the state's history.

Her other goal is personal: Hanaway, who turned 39 on Friday, wants to have more children. The odds are not good: Surgery for ovarian tumors left her with only part of an ovary after the birth of her daughter, Lucy, now 4.

So while raising a million dollars, battling the governor over the budget and recruiting candidates across the state, Hanaway slipped out of meetings to give herself a hormone shot. She sometimes got help from the only nurse in the House, Rep. Joan Barry, D-Oakville.

"We used to joke about how many Democrats would like to stick me with a big needle," Hanaway cracks.

Her little-known quest sheds some light on the person who will be playing a lead role in shaping state policy the next two years. Tough and pragmatic, she'll exhaust every option to reach her goals. But single-minded as she seems about politics, she's intent on balancing family and career.

Despite repeated tries, extracting her eggs for in vitro fertilization didn't work. Neither did implanting eggs donated by her sister. So Hanaway and her husband, Chris, a portfolio manager at A.G. Edwards, are pursuing an international adoption.

Their one-story home in Warson Woods is tasteful and homey. The living room, with its gleaming wood floors, antique book collection and sailboat-adorned mantel, is right next to the family room, where Lucy's plastic Little Tikes house fills one corner. Hanaway's favorite spot to unwind is on the patio, with a book and a cigar, by the glow of the chiminea.

She's about to take what is commonly considered state government's second most powerful job, ranking behind only the governor. The House speaker has life-and-death power over legislation and will set the tone and framework for dealing with the state budget shortfall and inevitable program cuts.

Hanaway is known for doing her homework and backing up her arguments w ith convincing facts and figures. The best example comes from her 18-month-long effort that resulted in Republicans grabbing a 90-73 majority on Tuesday.

"She had this little tripod, and she would show you every demographic - colored printouts of the state, each district and why she thought she could win it," said Datra Herzog, a lobbyist who represents businesses that Hanaway wooed for campaign funds. "We set her up with personal meetings with our clients, and everybody loved her."

Hanaway turned herself into a fund-raising machine. Business bigwigs joined her for "cocktails and cigars" at the Ritz Carlton in Clayton, forked over $1,175 to sit by her in Monsanto's luxury box during a Rams game and mailed in checks when she wrote letters declaring: "This is the year that Republicans in the Missouri House will take the majority."

Hanaway has been planning the takeover since she first won her House seat in 1998. Two months after she was sworn in, she invited reporters to a reception with the freshmen and sophomore Republican House members. Her news release explained that term limits would kick out most legislators in 2002 and the GOP's "New Millennium Caucus" would "assume leadership" in 2003.

About four reporters showed up. Afterward, she wrote them thank-you notes.

Tough girlhood lessons

Her early background didn't suggest a political future in Missouri. Hanaway grew up in Fremont, Neb., and Council Bluffs, Iowa, both bedroom communities to Omaha, Neb., where her parents worked. Her father was a teacher and coach and later a stockbroker and church fund-raiser. Her mother is a nurse practitioner.

Hanaway, who stands 6 feet tall today, always towered over classmates. She remembers changing schools when her family moved.

"One of the kids asked if I was a fifth-grader," she said. She was in kindergarten. Later, when she started sixth grade, someone asked if she was the new teacher.

She also endured taunts because of her weight, which has bounced up and down. "I've been on every diet known to man" starting at age 11, she said. She guesses she's 100 pounds heavier now than a decade ago.

While she has developed a thick skin, she said she occasionally still fights an instinct to flee a roomful of strangers because "someone might call me Moose," one of the names she was called as a child.

"It did toughen me up earlier than a lot of people get toughened up. It made me more compassionate," she said, because she understands how people feel who are singled out for being different.

One of three children, she played basketball, showed horses in 4-H Club and even did a little barrel racing. Those rural roots have helped her relate to outstate members in the GOP caucus.

Her political side emerged when she attended the University of Missouri at Columbia. Lackluster grades kept her out of journalism school, but she threw herself into student government and made key Republican connections.

Those she met included David Ayres and Brad Scott, who soon went to work for Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo. Years later, Bond would become Hanaway's boss and political mentor.

Leaving Mizzou, Hanaway returned to Nebraska and got her journalism degree from Creighton University. A law degree from Washington-based Catholic University of America followed.

Hanaway ended up in St. Louis at the law firm of Peper, Martin, Jensen, Maichel & Hetlage. Next door to her office, starting on the same day in 1990, was another newly minted lawyer: Jennifer Joyce.

Joyce is now the St. Louis circuit attorney. Back then, the two worked in the firm's litigation department, spending a month together in Houston, for example, reviewing documents for a failed savings and loan.

They have remained close. In fact, when Joyce decided to run for circuit attorney, the first person whose advice she sought was Hanaway - even though Joyce is a Democrat. Hanaway prepared a 15-page campaign plan for Joyce, "which was incredibly helpful," she said. "It was just like Campaign 101."

Though she disagrees with some of Hanaway's political views, Joyce calls her "a natural leader. She always knows what she's talking about . . . I have no doubt that she has in her heart the best interests of the state."

She's also fun, Joyce said. Hanaway recently planned an outing that included herself, Joyce and Ann Wagner, state chairwoman of the Missouri Republican Party. The group saw Cher at the Savvis Center. Hanaway bought them each $30 souvenir books.

"Completely accessible"

When she and her colleagues announced she had been chosen as speaker Wednesday, Hanaway wore a pantsuit, sensible low-heeled boots, and the ever-present Blackberry handheld wireless, with streaming e-mail, on her belt.

"This is a woman who is completely accessible," said Wagner, the GOP chairwoman and Hanaway's close friend. "The whole world has her cell phone number."

Members of her caucus praise her political instincts and down-to-earth manner. "I don't know of anyone in political life who has any more knowledge than she has," said Rep. B.J. Marsh, R-Springfield. "Catherine Hanaway is thinking 24 hours a day. I trust her 100 percent.

"She's been able to mold 90 people together. She did it in a matter of minutes" at the caucus Wednesday. "You could see everyone hungry for her leadership."

Hanaway said her priorities will include educating children, building safe roads and taking care of the needy within the budget available. "State government certainly doesn't have all the answers, and we need to reach out to the private sector," she said.

In an interview, she added: "There's complexity and depth in state government that I know I have not grasped. I know I'm going to have a huge learning curve."

While her organizational skills and brainpower go unquestioned even among critics, her ability to forge solutions to divisive issues is largely untested.

"When you're in the majority, you have to act responsibly," said Rep. Tim Green, D-Spanish Lake. "Well, now they're in the majority. There's no more blaming the Democrats."

Catherine Hanaway

Name: Catherine Lucille Hanaway

Born: Nov. 8, 1963, in Schuyler, Neb.

Education: Bachelor's degree in journalism, Creighton University, 1987; law degree, Catholic University of America, 1990.

Jobs: Lawyer at Peper, Martin, Jensen, Maichel & Hetlage in St. Louis, 1990-1993. Director of Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond's St. Louis district office, 1993-1998. Ran Republican Mark Bredemeier's campaign for attorney general in 1996. Ran George W. Bush's presidential campaign in Missouri in 2000.

Family: Married to Chris Hanaway, a portfolio manager at A.G. Edwards. They have one daughter, Lucy, 4, who attends junior kindergarten at Community School in Ladue.

Home: Warson Woods

Book she's reading: "Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson" by Robert Caro.