Tough Pittsburgh kid Hughes still standing in the Utah ring

When he was 12, Greg Hughes went off to a youth summer camp. First day he got in three fistfights.

The next day counselors sent him to the camp boxing ring, figuring he'd get along better there. He did.

When he went into Utah politics, he fought in that arena like he did in the ring: "Leading with my chin, slow on my feet," Hughes jokes.

Now 39, Rep. Hughes, R-Draper, has made one of the quickest turnarounds in Utah political history.

Considered down on the canvas last October when charged with numerous ethics violations five weeks before Election Day, Hughes got out of that scrape, bloodied but resolute. He won re-election.

Just four months later he pulled off a political upset few figured he could achieve, by orchestrating passage of a liquor-by-the-drink bill in the 2009 Legislature. It was the biggest alcohol change in Utah since mini-bottles were banned, and it was accomplished by bringing together disparate sides, like the LDS Church, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, liquor-license holders, and drinkers.

Now he's reportedly being considered, among others, by Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert for the second spot in state government when Herbert steps up to the soon-to-be vacant governorship.

Hughes' fighting nature has clearly paid off.

But he's also trying these days to be a kinder, gentler Greg Hughes, saying he's learned some valuable, if painful, realities.

Dressed in a faded polo shirt, cargo shorts and grubby tennis shoes — "my landlord outfit" —Hughes leans back on a modern, rubberized chair in his sparsely furnished west-side Salt Lake City office, analyzing his life.

He's realized, perhaps a bit late, that acting like a "poor teenager from the steel mills of Pittsburgh" is different "than being an adult legislator in Utah."

Now a GOP Mormon businessman/politician, Hughes didn't have your typical middle-class Utah upbringing.

"I was always loved. But there were challenges."

His mom was an unmarried, college art student when Hughes was born. He never knew, nor met, his father, although Hughes is his deceased father's last name. Hughes' mother sold cemetery plots, "totally on commission," and while she provided, the paychecks were spotty. One month "she'd buy me all these crazy gifts, when she had money. Once, she bought a new TV set and signed up for cable — all the rage in the 1970s."

But then she wouldn't pay the bills.

"The electricity was cut. The cable was turned off after one month. She'd take me to McDonald's, but (at home) the refrigerator wouldn't be stocked, there wasn't any food," he said. "She was an artist, God bless her. A painter; very unorganized."