Hawkins, Paula, 1927-2009

<p>Paula Hawkins née Fickes (January 24, 1927 – December 4, 2009) was an American politician from Florida. She is the only woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Florida. She was the second woman ever elected to the Senate from the American South. She was the first woman in the country to be elected to a full Senate term without having a close family member who previously served in major public office.</p>

<p>Hawkins was the eldest of three children born to Paul and Leone Fickes in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father was a Naval Chief Warrant Officer. In 1934, the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where her father taught at Georgia Tech. Her parents split when Paula was in high school, and Leone and the children returned to Utah. She finished high school at Richmond, Utah in 1944, then enrolled at Utah State University. Paula was hired to be the Athletic director's secretary and met her future husband. On September 5, 1947, Paula Fickes and Walter Eugene Hawkins were married and moved to Atlanta. Gene earned a degree in electrical engineering and eventually opened his own business. The couple had three children before moving in 1955 to Winter Park, Florida, where Paula became a community activist and Republican volunteer.</p>

<p>Hawkins launched her own electoral career by campaigning as a consumer advocate. In 1972, she became the first woman elected to statewide office in Florida by winning a seat on the Florida Public Service Commission. In 1974, she was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. The nomination went to businessman Jack Eckerd, who then lost the general election to the Democrat Richard B. Stone. The seat was vacated by the retiring one-term Republican Edward Gurney, with whom Hawkins and others in the Florida party had quarreled in the past. In 1976, Hawkins was reelected to the Public Services Commission despite the Jimmy Carter victory in Florida over U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr. In 1978, she was the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor on the ticket headed by her former intraparty rival Jack Eckerd. They lost to then-State Senator Bob Graham and State Representative Wayne Mixson. In 1980, she defeated former Congressman Bill Gunter to win election to the United States Senate; she was Florida's first woman elected to the United States Senate and only fifth from the South.</p>

<p>An aggressive and outspoken Republican, Paula Hawkins sailed into office in a Republican sweep led by victorious presidential candidate Ronald Reagan in 1980. A staunch defender of her ever-changing Florida constituency, she also created a public dialogue on the subject of missing, exploited, and abused children. Hawkins’s vigorous work to pass the 1982 Missing Children’s Act helped bring to light a long-ignored national scourge.</p>

<p>Paula Fickes was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, on January 24, 1927, the oldest of three children raised by Paul, a chief warrant officer in the Navy, and Leone (Staley) Fickes. In 1934 the family settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where Paul Fickes took a teaching job at Georgia Tech. The Fickes eventually separated, and Leone Fickes moved with her children to Logan, Utah. Paula Fickes graduated from Cache High School in Richmond, Utah, in 1944. She attended Utah State University before taking a job as a secretary for the university’s director of athletics. Paula Fickes married Walter Eugene Hawkins on September 5, 1947. The couple settled in Atlanta, where Walter studied electrical engineering; he later owned a successful electronics business. The Hawkins raised three children: Genean, Kevin, and Kelly Ann.</p>

<p>The family moved to Florida in 1955 where Paula Hawkins first entered public affairs as a community activist and volunteer for the local Republican Party organization. In 1966, she helped orchestrate Republican Edward John Gurney’s successful campaign in the GOP primary and general election for a House seat. Two years later, Hawkins co-chaired the Richard M. Nixon presidential campaign in Florida. Hawkins’s work as a GOP regular provided her the base from which to launch a political career, winning election to the Florida public service commission where she served from 1972 to 1979. In 1974 she entered the primary race for the U.S. Senate seat held by Gurney, then a freshman incumbent under investigation for campaign finance improprieties. Hawkins, however, failed to secure the GOP nomination. In 1978 Hawkins lost a campaign for lieutenant governor of Florida.</p>