The National Rifle Association elected Carolyn Meadows of Marietta as its new president this week. Here are some key things to know about the new leader in the gun-rights group.

  • She grew up in what was then rural Cobb County, where she and her siblings learned early to shoot guns.
  • An 8th grade teacher assigned her to write a paper on Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom her father did not like. She asked for a different assignment, which ended up being a classroom debate with the teacher on FDR . "I cleaned his clock," Meadows said.
  • The 80-year-old is retired from Lockheed-Martin, where she was a buyer for the employee store.
  • She was an early Republican operative, volunteering for former Congressman Bo Callaway's gubernatorial campaign in 1966 by knocking on doors.
  • State Republicans elected Meadows to a number of local and state party seats, including service as Georgia's National Chairwoman for 12 years.
  • She has been an NRA board member and officer since 2003.
  • Meadows is the second vice chairman of American Conservative Union, a grassroots organizing and lobbying organization.
  • She chairs the board of the Stone Mountain Memorial Association, the agency charged with overseeing the park.
  • Meadows is a member of the National Council for Policy, an influential conservative think tank.
  • She says she is "lucky" in that she doesn't need much sleep.

Read our story about her election earlier this week.

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