Personal life

Orr was born as 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. She married William Dayton Orr on September 26, 1957, and they had two children, John William and Suzanne. She moved with her family to Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1963. Shortly after moving there, she began volunteering as a Republican Party worker. She supported such politicians as Richard M. Nixon, Carl Curtis, and Roman Hruska, and in 1969 was named "Outstanding Young Republican Woman" in Nebraska.

Her husband, Bill Orr, died from complications of COPD on May 5, 2013.

Political career

Orr was appointed to fill a midterm vacancy in the office of Nebraska State Treasurer 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.

In 1986, Orr secured the Republican nomination for Nebraska governor by winning an eight-way primary.

Republican gubernatorial primary results, May 13, 1986
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Kay Orr	75,914	39.41
	Republican	Kermit Brashear	60,308	31.30
	Republican	Nancy Hoch	42,649	22.14
	Republican	Everett Sileven	4,281	2.22
	Republican	Paul Rosberg	4,280	2.22
	Republican	Monte Taylor	3,276	1.70
	Republican	Roger Yant	682	.35
	Republican	Chuck Loos	658	.34
	Republican	Write-in	601	.31

In the primary, Orr carried 81 of Nebraska's 93 counties including Douglas and Lancaster, Brashear carried 9 counties, and Hoch carried 2 counties.

In the 1986 general election, she defeated former Lincoln Mayor Helen Boosalis in the first U.S. gubernatorial election in which both major party candidates were women, winning by a 53% to 47% margin. Although a Republican woman, Vesta M. Roy, served as the unelected acting governor of New Hampshire from December 1982 to January 1983, Orr was the first Republican woman to be elected governor in the United States.

In the 1990 gubernatorial election, Orr was narrowly defeated for re-election by Democrat Ben Nelson. Nelson's two main attacks on her gubernatorial record were her support of a proposed low-level nuclear waste dump and her raising taxes.

Orr served twice as a presidential elector for the state of Nebraska, casting one of the state's five electoral votes. In the 2004 presidential election, she voted for George W. Bush; in the 2012 election, for Mitt Romney.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]