When Reno Republican Barbara Vucanovich was elected to Congress in 1982, she became the first Nevada woman ever elected to a federal office. Campaigning as a “tough grandmother,” she distinguished herself during her fourteen-year service in the U.S. House of Representatives by her indefatigable efforts on behalf of her state and her commitment to the conservative ideals of her party. In this engaging, richly informative memoir, Vucanovich reflects on her political career and the long road that led to it - her years as mother of a growing family, businesswoman, community and Republican Party volunteer, and her introduction to politics as the Northern Nevada manager of several of Paul Laxalt’s campaigns. Encouraged by Laxalt to run for Nevada’s new congressional seat, she became a sixty-one-year-old first-time political candidate. This book offers any reader, of whatever political persuasion, an exceptionally vivid account of politics on both the state and national levels during a notably turbulent era.