Kathy Whitmire, a 35-year-old widowed accountant, has been sworn in as the first woman chief executive of Houston, America's fifth largest city. A Democrat, she was elected in a November landslide mandating change in the way Houston is run.
She celebrated by joining 4,000 supporters who paid $10 each for what the Whitmire Campaign called the city's first full-fledged inaugural ball. 'Very few campaigns end up in the black. We did. We elected to spend the money this way as a way of thanking the people who made it possible,' said her campaign director, Clintine Cashion. 40 YEARS IN OFFICE
Erastus Corning II, 72, the nation's senior city chief executive, has been sworn in for his 11th four-year term as mayor of Albany, N.Y. Corning was first sworn in Dec. 31, 1941, just three weeks after Pearl Harbor.
