Button Up: As Rita Jenrette, she made...

Button Up: As Rita Jenrette, she made headlines posing nude for Playboy and talking about having sex with her congressman husband on the steps of the Capitol before he was convicted in the Abscam sting. Now the ex-Mrs. John Jenrette is using her maiden name, Rita Carpenter, and says she will star in a New York play called “Full House.” Her previous acting jobs include a role in “Zombie Island Massacre,” several off-Broadway plays and television guest shots.

Union Button: Pamela Richards, who turned down an Ohio lottery prize of a new $17,000 Honda because it was produced at a non-union plant, will get a new car after all, compliments of the AFL-CIO. The replacement will be a union-made Dodge Dakota pickup, said AFL-CIO spokesman Rex Hardesty. “I am union,” she explained to astonished lottery officials when she rejected the Honda in favor of a $1,000 cash prize.

On the Button: “I told everyone to save those Dole buttons,” was the way ex-presidential candidate Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) responded to news that his wife, Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, had been tabbed in a McCall’s magazine poll as the favorite to become America’s first woman President. She received 25% of the vote, compared to 15.5% for Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.).

Buttons ‘n’ Bows: “This is awesome. I can’t believe it,” said Paul Wilson, 17, of Hermann, Mo., after he became the first male to take top needle-and-thread honors in the state’s 4-H Fashion Revue. His entry: a double-breasted wool suit. “They started calling off the top five. They called four girls, then me,” he said. “Mom let out a gasp you could hear all over the room.” His mother, Marlene, is his coach. “I enjoy sewing. It’s a life skill. You never know when you could fall and rip your pants,” he said.