Martha Layne Collins

Common card · No. 409958

Martha Layne Collins (née Hall; December 7, 1936 – November 1, 2025) was an American businesswoman and politician from Kentucky; she served as the state's 56th governor from 1983 to 1987, the first woman to hold the office and the only one to date. Prior to that, she served as the 48th lieutenant governor of Kentucky, under John Y. Brown Jr. Her election as governor made her the highest-ranking woman in the Democratic Party. She was considered as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, but Mondale chose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro instead. After graduating from the University of Kentucky, Collins worked as a school teacher while her husband finished a degree in dentistry. She became interested in politics, and worked on both Wendell Ford's gubernatorial campaign in 1971 and Walter Dee Huddleston's United States Senate campaign in 1972. In 1975, she was chosen secretary of the state's Democratic Party and was elected...

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