Last week Sue Cline was a real estate broker with Century 21 First Choice, based in Beckley.
This week Cline is the newest member of the West Virginia Senate.
She was sworn in by Senate President Bill Cole on Monday morning, given two standing ovations by the full Senate and assigned to four different Senate committees. House Speaker Tim Armstead walked across the Capitol to the Senate chamber to personally greet her.
Cline's appointment marks the end of the Daniel Hall imbroglio, which had roiled the Capitol since Hall, a Democrat-turned-Republican, resigned from the Senate three weeks ago.
On Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled that Hall should be replaced by an Republican because he was a Republican when he quit. The decision ended weeks of uncertainty about who would control the state Senate. Hours later, Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin chose Cline, a Republican from Brenton, from a list of three possible candidates to fill the seat.
"He called me on his cell phone and said that he was appointing me and from there, it's just been a rush ever since," Cline said Monday, after her first Senate floor session.
She will represent the 9th Senatorial District, which covers Wyoming and Raleigh counties, and the northern tip of McDowell County.
Cline comes from a politically active family - her dad was the Wyoming County chair for the gubernatorial campaigns of Arch Moore and Cecil Underwood - which she said prodded her toward politics.
She ran unsuccessfully for House of Delegates in 2014, losing to Delegate Linda Phillips by 94 votes.
She had often talked with her husband, Bob Cline, about running for office, she said.
They were married for 48 years before he died two years ago.
"After he passed away, they kept calling me and asking me to do this, so I went ahead and I ran," Cline said.
She had planned on running again for the same seat in 2016.
"I thought, well, I'll just do that again," she said. "I thought I can make [94] votes up next time, that's not too bad."
The state Democratic Party, which sued unsuccessfully for the right to fill Hall's seat, pointed out the irony of Wyoming County now being represented by a person they (narrowly) rejected in the last election.
"Voters or no voters, they've got her in there deciding our fate," Chris Regan, the party's vice-chairman wrote. "This brings the nature of a Republican 'victory' into clear focus. Giving the voters the person they did not elect and the party they did not choose has become the Republican idea of winning."
Cline said she's not yet sure what she will do in November's elections. She has until Saturday to decide if she wants to run for the Senate seat she currently holds, or stick with her original plan of running for the House.
Hall's appointment to the Senate, which preserved the Republican's narrow majority, also doubled the number of women in the chamber.
There are now two female senators, out of 34.
"We need to get more women out there getting involved," Cline said. "If we'd all go vote, what a difference we could make and how much better we could make our country,"
Cline, who represents the struggling southern coalfields, said her region needs more jobs, a better education system and a more diverse economy.
"I mean, I'm for coal, 100 percent," she said. "But it's not going to be like it used to be."
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.