The Personal Touch

Around home these days, Sharon Davis is affectionately known as “Flee.”

“That means first lady elect,” explains husband Gray Davis, California’s next governor.

“I call him Gee,” Sharon Davis adds.

These are exhilarating days for California’s next first couple. For Sharon Davis especially, Flee is a long way from Santee, the small town outside San Diego that she still refers to as home.

It has been nearly 20 years since the former Sharon Ryer met Davis and entered the world of politics. But friends say the spotlight has not changed her yet--and they don’t expect her new title will, either.

She still has an old-fashioned gentility born of a frugal childhood with six siblings, a Navy father’s salary and a stay-at-home mother. And she never really learned politicalspeak, the cautious language that her husband uses so well.

Sharon Davis made hundreds of appearances on the campaign trail this year. She talked to the highbrow political crowds the same way she does to an old friend--like the time she told a San Diego luncheon audience about her husband’s reputation as a “boring white guy.”

“She is as genuine as they come,” said Michelle Wagoner, a friend for nearly 25 years. “She is very down to earth. I remember the scrubbed face, the blond hair and always California-looking; never a cross word and always easygoing.”

Sharon Davis, 44, is effervescent and independent--personality traits that suited her well when she became a flight attendant shortly after high school. Wagoner, who met Davis at the airline, said the job required a combination of people skills: courtesy and diplomacy.

In 1992, while still working part-time at the airline, Davis started a small public relations company that made press kits and prepared trade shows for a variety of companies.

Compelled To Try Public Service

Three years later, after leaving the airline, Davis said she felt compelled to do more public service work. So in 1995, she joined a charitable foundation--Ralphs Food-4-Less--as executive director. Last year, the foundation passed out $3.5 million in charitable grants to groups ranging from the American Heart Assn. to Little League teams. But Davis won’t be returning to that job; she took a leave of absence during the campaign, then decided after the election not to go back.

All the while, Davis has been the wife of a politician--gracious at socializing and adoring on stage. She has also been an influential confidant to her husband on some of the state issues--like education--that she considers important.

During the campaign, she toured dozens of elementary schools and her concern about high-quality principals helped produce her husband’s recent proposal for a principal-training program.

In coming months, she plans to continue visiting schools statewide as the governor’s “eyes and ears” on his highest policy priority--education reform.

“She is Gray’s best weapon,” said Bobbie Metzger, a longtime friend who now works for the Cal State University chancellor and is a member of the governor-elect’s transition team. “She is so natural and she loves talking to people. She is a great communicator.”

Davis said she admires Hillary Rodham Clinton, but she has also taken a lesson from the first lady’s unsuccessful effort to head a health care reform effort back in 1993.

“Gray is the type of person who likes to talk about issues and we have a very close relationship,” she said. “But I don’t think I have a greater say than anybody else on the staff.”

In public, Gray Davis attributes much of his personal strength to his wife. He talked frequently on the campaign trail about their marriage, including a recent renewal of their vows.

He also credited her publicly with restoring his Catholic faith after she converted from her Episcopal upbringing at his request about four years ago. They have regularly attended Mass ever since, missing only two services during the campaign, she said.

An Ordinary Life--and a Busy One

On election night, Sharon Davis was the subject of one of the first tributes issued by the new governor-elect: “I wouldn’t be here without her,” he said.

The couple live in a modest condominium in West Los Angeles. They have no children, chalking it up to their busy schedules. But Sharon Davis describes their private life as fairly ordinary.

For recreation, he golfs and she doesn’t--or she tries. She says they have not been to a movie theater in more than a year, but she enjoys reading famous biographies, most recently about Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Katherine Graham.

Sharon and Gray Davis married in 1983 after a jet-set romance that lasted about five years. There was something special about their first meeting--but it wasn’t love.

In 1979, Gray Davis was the 36-year-old chief of staff to then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Sharon Ryer, 25, was a PSA flight attendant who wasn’t happy one day when her plane was delayed for some political executive.

Hands on hips, she met Davis at the plane’s door and scolded him for his tardiness. A few flights later, he asked her to visit his office in Los Angeles, and she did.

Dating a Sacramento politician while living with her parents in Santee required a flexible schedule. Fortunately, she could fly on weekends to meet him wherever he had to be.

Often, they socialized at a home or restaurant with Brown and his usual date, singer Linda Ronstadt. It all seemed pretty exotic at the time.

“To be a flight attendant and to be from Santee and spending weekends hanging with the governor was kind of cool,” she recalled. “I was impressed.”

One of the biggest impressions, however, was on Sharon’s parents.

Her father, Don Ryer, a former Navy chief petty officer, still describes himself as a “staunch Republican.” Both of her parents were active in GOP campaigns, even walking precincts as volunteers for Brown’s Republican opponent.

When Davis confessed that she was dating a Democrat, she remembers her mother, Mary, saying that it was OK. “We have friends who are Democrats,” her mother said.

“When I told them he actually worked for Jerry Brown, my parents just went white,” she said.

But Gray Davis works well in the political hot seat. Don Ryer remembers that they talked about politics in their first meeting, something about the minimum wage.

“I think he was a good politician,” Ryer said. “He agreed with me.”

Focused on Community From an Early Age

Sharon Ryer grew up as the middle child of seven--five boys and two girls. Today, her childhood stories describe an active family in a dull town.

She remembers singing at rest homes and planting trees for civic groups. Her mother was president of the Republican Women’s Club and both parents volunteered for the PTA and for scouting activities.

On weekends, working with a community youth group, her parents hired bands and chaperoned dances for kids.

Davis’ mother died earlier this year. Her father is retired, still living in Santee, and is an active volunteer in a prison ministry program.

“I think I got a real sense of public service from my family,” she says today. “My parents wanted us to try a lot of things . . . to keep everybody occupied.”

Politics was a common dinner topic at the Ryer table, and it was a poignant discussion during the Vietnam War. Two of her older brothers enlisted in the military and served in Vietnam.

Davis didn’t like the war, but she never joined the protesters. Her politics, mostly expressed later in life, came from the heart.

She has been active in the National Women’s Political Caucus and hopes the state will continue to hold an annual women’s convention that was started by Gov. Wilson. She also plans to focus on children--in schools as well as in foster care.

“I think from my work in the not-for-profit side, it makes you aware of all of the organizations that are out there and doing a lot of good,” she said.

As the governor’s wife, “you are kind of raising standards. This is a kind of important role you are playing.”