As a mother of a dozen children, she had played a minor role in politics for years, writing letters and making calls for campaigns. She worked on the Equal Rights Amendment issue while in Idaho, and she worked with the Eagle Forum in support of Mecham. After moving to Utah, with her children older, she spent more time in politics.

"There were two things that made me get really involved — home school and the pro-life issue," she says. "That later evolved into the homosexual agenda. I felt I needed to have a say in it."

In Utah, she began to wade deeper and deeper into issues, namely pro-life bills and education. Soon, even legislators were seeking her input. In 1991, two years after moving to Utah, she was made president of Eagle Forum.

It created a schedule that would wear out a marathoner. Ruzicka oversaw a large household, taught a half-dozen children and she led a large political organization.

"I found out I could live without a lot of sleep," she says.

Her routine: Up at 6, clean the house, organize the day, wake the kids, get them ready for school, teach school, perform her Eagle Forum duties, go to bed sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. When the Legislature was in session, she got up at 5 a.m. to get her kids fed and dressed, then she loaded them in the car and made the 45-minute drive to the Legislature, sometimes braving the Point of the Mountain in snowstorms.

There she would sit in the balcony of the Legislature, surrounded by her half-dozen kids, who were doing their homework.

"Sometimes I would find myself thinking as I drove, what am I doing," she says. "I would be crying. I made a commitment to do these things and had to keep my commitment. There are people all over the country who do it."

For the most part, she says her children were remarkably well-behaved, although there were days when she would have to take them out on the Capitol lawn to let them run. They got to know more about the workings of politics than any field trip would have shown them.

"They were so good that legislators would compliment them about it all the time," says Ruzicka.

Kristyn, the Ruzickas' ninth child, recalls, "We sat up there and did school work. My mom talked about it a lot with us, and we knew what was going on."

Like many of her siblings, Kristyn has been active in politics and has performed work for the Eagle Forum. At three of the past four national conventions, two or three of the Ruzicka children served as delegates, along with their parents.

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