Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 8, 2012

Martha Layne Collins (born 1936) is a businesswoman and politician from Kentucky who was the state's 56th governor from 1983 to 1987. Prior to her election as governor, she was the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, serving under John Y. Brown, Jr. She is the only woman to have been governor of Kentucky, and her election made her the highest-ranking Democratic woman in the U.S. at the time. She was considered as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, but Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro instead. Her administration had two primary focuses: education and economic development. She secured an increase in education funding during a special legislative session in 1985 and successfully used economic incentives to bring a Toyota manufacturing plant to Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1986. After her term as governor, she became president of Saint Catharine College near Springfield, Kentucky. Her husband's conviction on charges of influence-peddling in 1993 damaged her hopes for a return to political life. She is currently an executive scholar in residence at Georgetown College. (more...)

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