After all, the lone woman on Kanab's City Council knew painfully well the nonbinding decree - with its call for parents to embrace a "full quiver" of children - doesn't describe her family.

She planned for kids, yearned for them. But it didn't happen.

"It was a terrible blow," explains Sullivan, sitting on the patio of her Kanab home while her husband, LaMar, turns spades of soil nearby in the garden. "I anticipated marriage and children, but not everything we plan in life works out."

Carol Sullivan's plans included getting an education so she could become a teacher. Reared by a divorced, working mother in San Diego - "I was a latchkey kid before the term was invented," she says - Sullivan figured a classroom career would dovetail nicely with her home-front desires.

"I thought it was the best job that would allow me to be with a family," she says.

So Sullivan enrolled in Palomar Community College in Southern California. She worked nights to support herself and pay for her schooling. She eventually earned a bachelor's degree in history and Spanish at Brigham Young University and later a master's degree in social science at Utah State University.

"I knew getting educated and having skills was the only way to get ahead," she says. "When I started working, men were always paid more than a woman for doing the same work."

Then Sullivan learned she would be unable to bear children. She was devastated.

"Most people don't understand what it is like to go through something like that," she says. "It is easier to adopt now than it was more than 30 years ago."

Sullivan married Garth Penny in 1966 - he died in 1982 - and the couple moved to Kanab, where she taught elementary and high school, and he became superintendent of the Kane County School District.

Penny had two kids from a previous marriage - her current husband has four - but, for Sullivan, it's different with stepchildren .

"You love them, but you also realize that they have a mother whom they love. It's not the same," she says. "Some people say that the 5,000 kids I taught are my children, but really they have their own families, and it gets a little lonely sometimes, especially on holidays."

Sullivan cherished the children in her classes, serving as a foster parent and participating in civic groups for girls. "I have always encouraged them to get a good education," she says.

But school also could be a source of frustration and, at times, discrimination.

"We were expected to teach extracurricular activities for no additional pay," she recalls. "Six weeks into [teaching], the principal told me I had to teach some extra activities because the regular teacher couldn't. When I complained, he said I had to because the other teacher had kids at home and I didn't."

Sullivan's personal history - combined with comments from other childless couples, single moms, divorced parents and others - prompted her to revisit her past vote for the natural-family document. She decided the resolution was too exclusive and divisive, so she worked to rescind it, but could not persuade her council colleagues to go along.

"I don't think how this would affect people emotionally was considered at first, so I changed my stand," Sullivan explains. "I know I flip-flopped and have been criticized for it, but I take responsibility."

Dixie Brunner, editor of the Southern Utah News, credits the three-term councilwoman for having the courage to reverse her position.

"Talking to her after her vote for the resolution, she admitted she thought it was the wrong move and changed her vote," Brunner says. "That is what a smart politician does - even if it means taking some heat."

That heat may be cooling. In fact, Sullivan won cheers, not jeers, the night she tried to overturn the resolution when a packed auditorium gave her a standing ovation.

"It was almost overwhelming," she recalls.

By far, though, Sullivan's biggest fan is LaMar, her husband since 1988 and himself adopted when he was 3 weeks old.

"All four of the male [council] members, just do as they please and push her into a corner," he says. "You're damn right I'm proud of her."

mhavnes@sltrib.com

Sullivan family snapshot

Wife: Carol Sullivan, 64

Husband: LaMar Sullivan, 69

Children: Carol has six stepchildren - four from her current husband and two from a previous marriage. The Sullivans have 18 grandkids.

Kanab's City Council adopted a nonbinding "natural-family" resolution, which touts marriage between men and women as "ordained of God" and conceives homes as "open to a full quiver of children." It also promotes young women becoming "wives, homemakers and mothers" and young men growing into "husbands, home builders and fathers." Since the resolution's passage in January, women's advocates, gay-rights activists and others - inside and outside of Kanab - have decried the decree and even called for a boycott of area businesses.

This week in The Tribune

Kanab's passage of the "natural-family" resolution has sparked much debate about the value - and values - of families. This week, The Salt Lake Tribune is profiling the mayor and four types of families with one common ingredient: love.

Monday: The resolute mayor who pushed the resolution then and defends it now.

Tuesday: A hardworking doctor and an industrious mother who are rearing seven kids.

Today: A councilwoman who still feels the sting of being unable to bear children.

Thursday: A single mother who works two jobs to support her three kids.

Friday: Two women who fell in love 16 years ago, reared a son and now care for a "full quiver" of cats.