Orr, Kay A. (Kay Avonne), 1939-

KAY A. ORR was born in Burlington, Iowa. She attended the University of Iowa. In 1963, she moved with her family to Lincoln Nebraska, where she became a leader in the Republican Party at the local, state, and national levels. She was elected as a delegate to the national conventions of 1976, 1980, 1984, and 1988. She served as the co-chair of the party’s platform committee in 1984 and was the committee chair for 1988. She was Nebraska’s first female governor, and the first female Republician governor in the United States. She was Nebraska State Treasurer from 1981 to 1986, and regional vice president of the National Association of the State Treasurers. She served on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricuture Research and Extension Users Advisory Board, and on the President’s Advisory Committee on the Arts for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She was a member of the Commission of Presidential Debates.

<p>Kay Avonne Orr (née Stark, January 2, 1939) is an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Nebraska from 1987 to 1991. A member of the Republican Party, she was the state's first female governor.</p>

<p>Orr was born Kay Avonne Stark in Burlington, Iowa. Her mother, Sadie, was active in local politics, while her father, Ralph, was a Burlington city council member and farm implements dealer. She attended the University of Iowa from 1956 to 1957.</p>

<p>In 1963, Orr began volunteering for the Republican Party. She supported such politicians as Richard Nixon, Carl Curtis, and Roman Hruska, and was named Nebraska's Outstanding Young Republican Woman in 1969.</p>

<p>Orr was appointed to fill a midterm vacancy in the office of State Treasurer of Nebraska in 1981. She was subsequently elected to that post in 1982, becoming the first woman ever to be elected to a statewide constitutional office in Nebraska. She held that office until 1987.</p>