AUGUSTA (AP) – With her husband elected this month to a second four-year term as governor, Karen Baldacci is mapping out plans of her own.

In the past four years, the first lady has been active promoting literacy, child wellness, local agriculture and the Blaine House, restoring the mansion’s gardens to their historically accurate state.

In the next four years her goals will remain much the same, she said, starting with a major event to promote reading.

Being a governor’s wife is much different than being the wife of a congressman, she said. Her husband, John Baldacci, was a U.S. representative for eight years before being elected governor in 2002.

“If you’re the wife of a congressman, you can pretty much be wallpaper,” Baldacci said. “When you’re the wife of a governor, there’s expectations that come with that.”

An avid reader, Baldacci is working with the Maine Humanities Council and others to organize a festival, to be held in June in Portland, to celebrate Maine authors and illustrators.

“One little piece or tidbit, whatever it might be, to pique an interest in all of us to read,” she said.

She is also chairwoman of the Maine Children’s Cabinet, a group that oversees and coordinates the delivery of state services to children in Maine. The cabinet, which is composed of state departments that are related to children and families, is looking at day care issues, abuse and neglect, and ways to help students who are disengaged from school.

“We spend so little and it means so much in the future of the economy, education and lives of Mainers,” said Baldacci.

Baldacci has also left her mark on the Blaine House grounds, raising money to build a greenhouse in 2004 and reinstalling historic gardens that were removed in the 1980s. The garden dates to 1919, when landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted designed the Blaine House grounds.

Four years ago, John and Karen Baldacci and their son, Jack, now 15, moved from their Bangor home to the Blaine House. She quit her job as an elementary school teacher to devote herself to her role as first lady.

It’s tough when people criticize her husband, she said, but that comes with the territory.

“He’s trying to do the right thing, but not everyone agrees,” she said. “In politics, you do, you develop a thick skin. It’s the rough and tumble that comes with it.”

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Information from: Kennebec Journal, http://www.kjonline.com/

AP-ES-11-27-06 1045EST

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