One is her great-great-grandmother. Another is her great-grandmother, Rebecca Stober Hassler, a Republican who had a farm in the Harrisburg area.


Another is her grandmother, Gertrude Hassler, showing her at her graduation from Cumberland Valley State Normal School, now Shippensburg University, in 1900.


The last is her mother, Kathryn Nisley Herr, as a child.


The model for the sepia-tinted photo is sitting on a swivel chair in the center of the room.


Mrs. Herr is 102. For Mother’s Day today, she’ll be spending quiet time with her only child, probably going to church and then home, while her Democrat daughter takes a day off the campaign trail to celebrate her mom.


There’s a legacy of strong women in Lois Herr’s family, which Mrs. Herr thinks might explain why her daughter is aiming to be the first woman to represent the 16th Congressional District.


“She must have inherited her grandmother’s energy and determination to overcome obstacles,” Mrs. Herr wrote in a short history of the family’s notable women.


Mrs. Herr is notable herself.

She earned her degree from Lebanon Valley College in 1927 and went into teaching. She married Ira Herr, the legendary Elizabethtown College basketball coach and athletic director. When Lois was born, the team called her “Baby Coach.” Lois remembers playing in the college library, where her mother, who taught foreign languages at E-town, then worked.


Herr is working now on a book about her father’s players who went off to war in the 1940s.


She’s trying to wedge in the writing between campaign stops, as she builds name recognition and, she hopes, support for her effort to oust Republican incumbent Joe Pitts in November.


Herr ran against Pitts two years ago and was trounced, a typical outcome in the heavily Republican 16th District. But she did better than any Democrat has done in years, racking up 97,076 votes to Pitts’ 181,799.


This time around, with national dissatisfaction with President Bush growing, and with the experience she got two years ago, Herr expects she will indeed be the first woman to represent the 16th.


She has been a trailblazer most of her career, working her way through the ranks of the telecommunications industry and eventually writing a book about her experiences.


Oddly enough, Herr said, somewhere along the line, being a woman stopped being a liability for candidates. Now women are seen as change agents.


“Being a woman candidate right now, I think, is an advantage,” she said.


But she’d like to see a day when women running for office isn’t a sign of change, but a matter of routine. Only 14 percent of members of Congress are women, even in 2006. Pitts, meanwhile, is a favorite of social conservatives. A recent New York Times Magazine story mentioned Pitts as among congressional Republicans who have opposed various forms of contraception.


“I think they want to roll back the ’60s and ‘70s,” Herr said. “I don’t think the district is as conservative as he is.”


And in the current political climate, with Democrats scenting the chance to swing control of Congress in November, the 16th race is likely to get more national attention through the summer and fall.


Pitts didn’t debate Herr two years ago; she’s hoping that will change this year. She has been running hard all year, even though she doesn’t have any primary opposition.


Democrats like to talk about Herr’s deep Lancaster County roots, as opposed to Pitts, who’s from Chester County. She is the past chairwoman of the Lancaster County Planning Commission.


“We’d hope Lancaster County Republicans would adopt me as one of their own,” she said.


On the Herr side, Lois Herr is descended from Hans Herr, one of the original settlers of Lancaster County. The Herrs discovered recently that the Nisley family, Mrs. Herr’s side, which had lived in the Harrisburg area, actually owned a 1700s-era stone house still standing — and still occupied — on the Masonic Village property in Elizabethtown. “When she moved to Elizabethtown she had no idea she was moving home,” Lois Herr said.


The candidate Herr was asked for a newspaper interview recently who she’d most like to talk to. After thinking about that for a while, Herr would change her original answer.


“I would really like to have a conversation with my grandmother,” she said.


Herr is retired, but she is a full-time candidate and full-time caregiver for her mother, who she says is a good roommate. Lois Herr sold her farm near E-town two years ago, and her mother sold the family house, so mother and daughter could share a home.


For her part, Mrs. Herr is a good campaign volunteer, handing out her daughter’s business cards to visitors. “Maybe,” Lois Herr said, “I’m more like my mother than I ever thought.”




On the road again




— In the 97th House district, state Rep. Roy Baldwin held a press conference last week with retiring 36th District Sen. Noah Wenger to announce completion of intersection improvements at Route 501/Trolley Run Road/Owl Hill Road, Route 501/Oregon Road and Route 501/Delp Road. Baldwin is running against endorsed Republican John Bear on Tuesday.


The $1.6 million project was managed through the Lancaster County Transportation Authority. Another intersection project at Route 501 and Millport Road is expected to start in 2007.


— Bear, a Lititz Borough councilman, was endorsed last week by former congressman Pat Toomey, a conservative icon who now heads the national Club for Growth. Toomey criticized the rate of government spending in saying Bear would help to rein in the budget.


— Meanwhile, Democrat Timothy L. Callahan, who faces the winner of the GOP primary in November, told the Warwick Democrats club recently that “Baldwin still doesn't seem to ‘get it’ in terms of public outrage with the pay grab.” He also criticized Bear’s recent fundraiser at Bent Creek Country Club, sponsored by Realtor Marilyn Berger, saying the connection should raise questions about how Bear would vote on development issues.


Callahan was skeptical of Bear’s advocacy of a plan to cut the size of the Legislature: “In order to keep open the lines of communication between state legislator and constituent, and in order to keep open the possibility of low-funded citizens from winning office in Pennsylvania, I would advise caution.”




Campaign trails




Yes, we are ALMOST at the end of the trail — hallelujah! — In the crazy 36th District Senate race, endorsed Republican Mike Brubaker last week got the endorsement of state Rep. Gordon Denlinger, R-99th District, who said Brubaker “possesses the willingness to listen to all viewpoints and has the deep sense of personal humility necessary to be an effective representative of the people.”


Brubaker also held a fundraiser Friday night at the Lancaster Barnstormer game at Clipper Magazine Stadium and met earlier in the week with representatives of the ag community in the 36th.


— In the 100th House district, incumbent Republican Gib C. Armstrong notched a first in the perennial campaign-sign-vandalism problem: He distributed video from a hidden surveillance camera showing a dark car running over one of his giant “Gib” signs on Route 222 in West Lampeter Township.


Armstrong said police are investigating.


— His challenger, Bryan Cutler, was still annoyed last week by more mailings for Armstrong paid for by the Republican State Committee. Cutler said the RSC “is making a direct attempt to impact the outcome of this election in favor of an incumbent who couldn’t even get endorsed by his own local party.”


Cutler, who like Armstrong is “recommended” by the district GOP after Armstrong couldn’t muster two-thirds majority for endorsement, has asked the state committee for similar assistance, but he said last week that campaign manager Ryan Aument has gotten no reply.


(Completely off topic: the Bryan-Ryan thing must be entirely confusing for the campaign!)


Cutler also picked up the endorsement of Firearm Owners Against Crime last week.


— Also endorsed by Firearms Owners Against Crime is Henry Federowicz, who’s challenging incumbent Tom Creighton in the 37th House district Republican primary.


“Federowicz is an ardent opponent of more government control over our personal freedoms,” the firearm owners’ group said in a statement.


— In the 96th House district, endorsed Republican Patrick Snyder announced a pledge to the 96th last week, saying if elected he will never vote for a pay raise or accept unvouchered expense money. (The incumbent, Mike Sturla, voted for the raise and took the money.)


Snyder also promised never to vote to increase legislative pensions and never to take “per diem” payments for going to Harrisburg or taxpayer-funded trips. He said he would pay for his own car, gas and insurance and would support both term limit legislation and lobbyist disclosure bills.


He said his salary, office expenses, campaign contributions and voting record would be available on the Internet: “Lancaster City and Lancaster Township residents need a state representative who puts their interest above his own self-interest.”


— Snyder’s primary opponent, Keith Charles, won the support last week of the Right to Work Political Action Committee.

"Keith Charles is an unwavering opponent of 'agency shop' forced dues over all Pennsylvania employees and he stands firmly behind the rights of all workers to freely choose or reject union representation according to their wishes," PAC chairman John E. Mumma said in a statement.


— Bob Casey Jr., the party-backed candidate in the Democrats’ U.S. Senate primary, got the endorsement of the Capital Region Stonewall Democrats, a political organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Democrats and their straight allies. The group covers Lancaster County.


Local supporters of another of the Democrats’ triumvirate, Chuck Pennacchio, meanwhile, were putting their lives on the line by standing on the median and berms of Harrisburg Pike at rush hour last week to wave at motorists (and talk to those stuck in traffic) on Pennacchio’s behalf.




Political potpourri




— Lancaster County ACTION’s voter guide, one of the most influential in the county, is out — a little later than usual in the primary season — ranking candidates on such issues as slots, human cloning, Internet filtering, abortion funding, tuition aid, government spending caps and the marriage amendment.


As usual, most Democrats did not respond to ACTION’s questionnaire. Only a few answers showed differences between the candidates.


In the 41st House district, for instance, challenger Jim McDonald said he is undecided on legal slots gambling (incumbent Katie True is opposed) and opposed a ban on human cloning for medical research, which True supports. He didn’t answer a question on “legal protection for human life from conception.”


In the 48th Senate, incumbent Chip Brightbill did not answer a question on whether public employees should be required to pay union dues; challenger Mike Folmer opposed it. And in the 96th, Snyder did not answer a question on the amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman; Charles supported it.


— If you’re looking for your polling place on Tuesday, the handiest information source on the Web is at www.lancasterdems.com, the county Democrats’ site. The donkeys have polling locations and maps available.


— The end of primary season (hooray) means the start of party reorganization for the county GOP.


According to the party’s Web site, www.goplancaster.com, the committee will meet June 22 at the Farm and Home Center to elect officers. There’s the potential for a race for county chairman — seems like that’s a constant for the GOP — with incumbent Dave Dumeyer up for a third term.


— Hey, let me know what you think of the new voting machines, would you? As a registered no-party voter, I can’t vote on Tuesday!


Helen Colwell Adams is the Sunday News political writer. E-mail her at hcolwell@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-4962.

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