Kay A. Orr

Kay Orr (b. January 2 1939, Burlington, Iowa) is a U.S. Republican Party politician. She served as Governor of Nebraska from 1987 to 1991.

Biography

Born as Kay Auonne Stark in Burlington, Iowa, she attended the University of Iowa. In 1963 she moved with her family to Lincoln, Nebraska. Shortly after moving to Nebraska, Orr started volunteering as a Republican Party worker. She volunteered in support of such politicians as Richard M. Nixon, Carl Curtis, and Roman Hruska, and in 1969 was named "Outstanding Young Republican Woman" in Nebraska. From 1981 to 1986 she served as Nebraska State Treasurer. She was appointed as State Treasurer to fill a midterm vacancy, and subsequently elected in her own right in 1982. In the 1986 election she defeated former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis in the first U.S. gubernatorial election in which both major party candidates were women, winning by a 53% to 47% margin.

She was the first Republican woman to be elected Governor in the United States [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE7D8113DF93AA35752C0A961948260 'NEBRASKA, IN NEW PAGE TO HISTORY, INSTALLS WOMAN', By THOMAS J. KNUDSON, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES, Jan 9, 1987] ] , although Republican woman Vesta M. Roy served as the unelected Acting Governor of New Hampshire from December 1982 to January 1983. She is to date the only woman to have served as governor of Nebraska.

She was narrowly defeated for reelection as Governor in 1990 by conservative Democrat Ben Nelson. One of two election attacks by Nelson was Orr's record on supporting a proposed low-level nuclear waste dump. Under Nelson, the Nebraska state Department of Environmental Quality would deny an operating license for the nuclear waste dump, prompting a lawsuit which Nebraska settled for $145-million.

During the 2004 presidential election, she cast one of Nebraska's five electoral votes for George W. Bush.

References

* [http://www.nebraskahistory.org/lib-arch/research/public/state_governors/orr_kay.pdf Governor Orr's papers] at the Nebraska State Historical Society