Granny Gets Her Gun, Brings Down ‘Largest’ Deer

--No knitting needles and quilting bees for Ruby Parker of Bend, Ore. Her hands are best suited to rod and rifle and she hunts and fishes with the best. Parker, 73, lit out on her own in this year’s deer hunt and brought down a mule deer--the biggest of the hunting party--with her 30.06 rifle after a long stalk. “I got it through the neck,” she said. “Then I had to wait for someone to help me gut it.” Ruby Parker always amazes her family, including her three grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. “We can’t remember her being skunked,” said her grandson, Jack Waterfield. “She always gets the biggest deer, the most fish and the biggest fish. That’s not bragging.” She made her shot from 30 yards after quietly tracking down the big buck. “I was scared to step on a stick ever since I was big enough to follow my dad,” she said. “That’s how I got so close. I was quiet. I snuck up on him before he knew I was ever around.”

--Peggy Lee, the Grammy-award-winning singer-songwriter, was described as being in stable condition after undergoing four hours of double-bypass heart surgery in New Orleans and was doing “exceptionally well,” hospital officials said. Lee, 65, who checked into the Touro Infirmary on Sunday with chest pains, had been scheduled to perform Tuesday night at the White House at a state dinner for the prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. She was in New Orleans for an engagement at the Fairmont Hotel’s Blue Room, but canceled her final performance Monday night.

--Soviet-born Walter Polovchak, the youngster who touched off an international dispute five years ago when he balked at returning to his homeland, took the oath and became a U.S. citizen in a ceremony at the nation’s Capitol. “For Walter,” who turned 18 last week, “this really was his dream--to become a citizen,” said his attorney, Julian Kulas.

--Meanwhile, Miss USA, Mexican-born Laura Martinez Herring, will help naturalize 530 citizens today in El Paso, including her own mother, Maria Elena Martinez, an official of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization service said in El Paso.

--Secretary of Transportation Elizabeth Hanford Dole has named country music star Barbara Mandrell to serve as honorary chairman of “All-America Buckle Up Week” from Nov. 24 to Nov. 30. Dole said she chose Mandrell because the singer credits seat belts with saving her life and those of her two children in a September, 1984, head-on collision.