(Hart County, 1919-1994) At age 15, Thelma Stovall went to work at the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company in Louisville to financially help with the family’s finances. Her single mother was raising two children during the Great Depression. At Brown and Williamson, Stovall began her active involvement in organized labor and remained a strong friend of the Kentucky labor unions throughout her long career in public service. Beginning in 1950, she advanced the status of women in Kentucky politics as the first woman to hold elective political office from Jefferson County in the Kentucky House of Representatives. She served three terms in the state House before being elected Kentucky’s secretary of state for three terms: 1956-60, 1964-68, and 1972- 75. She also served as state treasurer for two terms: 1960-64 and 1968-72. In 1975, she was elected the first female lieutenant governor in Kentucky. As lieutenant governor, she vetoed the General Assembly’s rescission of its ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She was appointed as a member emeritus of the Kentucky Commission on Women by Governor Martha Layne Collins.