Newsmakers : Woman Corrals Top Post Among Nation’s Ranchers

--From the day her first-grade teacher taped her mouth shut for talking too much, Jo Ann Smith has had something to say--but now she speaks for 230,000 American ranchers. For the last year, as president-elect of the National Cattlemen’s Assn., Smith, 45, has been preparing herself to lead the Denver-based organization which has members in all 50 states. “It’s obvious you aren’t sending the ‘little woman’ to do a big man’s job. You’re sending a cattleman to do a cattleman’s job,” she said in remarks prepared for delivery to the organization’s national convention in Phoenix as she assumes the top job. Referring to the convention theme of “facing the challenge of change,” she added: “I guess it means that I get the challenge. And you get the change.” A fifth-generation Florida rancher who married another fifth-generation rancher on a nearby spread, she can mend fences, round up strays and brand calves. Someone suggested last week, she said, that she was following in the footsteps of Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court; Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut; and Geraldine A. Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential nominee. “That’s pretty heady company, and I was flattered for a minute,” she said. “But then I thought: Whoa! Unlike Sandra Day O’Connor, I only judge the soundness of a cow. Unlike Sally Ride, I only shuttle from Micanopy (Fla.) to Denver to Washington. And unlike Geraldine Ferraro, I got elected.”

--Singer Peggy Lee is resting at home in Los Angeles following surgery Jan. 23 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica to open constricted arteries, but she is “champing at the bit” to get back to work, said publicist Gino Empry. Lee, 63, underwent a coronary angioplasty operation, in which inflatable catheters were used to open narrowed arteries, making heart bypass surgery unnecessary, Empry said.

--Actor Cary Grant, who spoke about his life to a sellout crowd of 3,000 at the Masonic Auditorium in San Francisco, said the acting part of his career is over. “I don’t have the energy for it anymore,” the snowy-haired veteran of 72 movies said. “I loved my work, so I had fun making most of my films--especially those I did for Alfred Hitchock.” Grant, 81, added during a question-and-answer period that he had never done exercises to stay in shape. “The best exercise I know of is making love,” he said. He got a standing ovation and on the way out kissed Kristin Bear, 25. “My knees are still shaking,” she said.