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GED Grad
Elected Governor
(Posted January, 2001)
On January 2nd, Ruth Ann Minner was sworn in as Governor of Delaware. She was elected in November and is the first woman to hold that position.
Mrs. Minner is also a graduate of a GED program. In 1967, when she was 32 years old, her first husband died and left her with three sons. She was the daughter of a sharecropper and had no high school diploma.
She told the New York Times: "I had three small children and had to get a job. You did it because you knew you had to do it."
Mrs. Minner went back to school and worked two jobs. She earned her high school diploma and then went on to graduate from college.
She did volunteer work for a state legislator who was elected governor in 1972. She then got a job as a receptionist in the governor’s office. In that position, she started to learn about how government worked. She then decided to run for the Delaware House of Representatives and was elected in 1974. She served five terms in the House and then won a State Senate seat. In 1992 she was elected Lieutenant Governor.
On Inauguration Day, a friend and fellow politician, Donna Stone, described Mrs. Minner in this way: "Ruth Ann’s life is really an expression of the American dream. She shows us you can achieve any goal you set for yourself."
(Information taken from an article in the New York Times, January 4, 2001, page A.18.)
Revised 1/11/01