Olene S. Walker
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Olene Smith Walker (born November 15, 1930), Utah's 15th (and first female) governor, was sworn into office November 5, 2003. Walker was born in Ogden, Utah. She received her Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate degrees from Brigham Young University, Stanford University and the University of Utah. She is married to Myron Walker and is the mother of seven children and grandmother to 25 grandchildren.
Walker's distinguished political background includes eight years in the state legislature including a term as Majority Whip. She founded the Salt Lake Education Foundation and served as its director. She also served as director of the Utah Division of Community Development. She has chaired the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, the Utah State Housing Coordinating Committee, the Governor's Commission on Child Care, and the National Conference of Lieutenant Governors.
She assumed the office of Governor of the State of Utah after former governor Mike Leavitt resigned his office to serve as Administrator of the EPA. Walker served as governor until the end of Leavitt's term on January 3 2005. Shortly after becoming governor, she selected former State Represenative Gayle McKeachnie to be her lieutenant governor.
In a move that caused a degree of controversy within the state, The Utah Republican Party at its convention on 8 May 2004 elected not to place Walker on the ballot for the party primary (held 22 June, 2004), selecting instead Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Nolan Karras as the two potential Republican party candidates for the office of Governor of the State of Utah. Huntsman would go on to win the primary election with a great plurality of the vote. These events effectively ruled out any possibility of Walker being on the ballot in the 2 November, 2004 general election, despite her high approval ratings among Utahns from both ends of the political spectrum. Convention delegates defended their choice by claiming that many of the delegates were already pledged to other candidates, owing to the fact that Walker had served only six months as Governor before the party convention. Some have speculated that Ms. Walker's refusal to hold rank with the State Party leadership on several issues and the fact that she is a woman in a largely patriarchal state were the real reasons for her failure to secure a spot on the ballot.
| Preceded by : Michael O. Leavitt | Governor of Utah 2003-2005 | Succeeded by: Jon Huntsman, Jr. |