Ann Kirkpatrick: “No woman or person I have ever known has appreciated the right to vote quite like Jerry Emmett. She was born at a time…”

“No woman or person I have ever known has appreciated the right to vote quite like Jerry Emmett. She was born at a time when being a woman meant being silenced. She was raised at a time when women had to fight to be heard and worked 10 times as hard to be taken seriously. She aged to see women become prominent and powerful, and she passed away the same year that we had the most women elected to Congress. I remember well the first time I met Jerry Emmett. She was very close friends with the late Carolyn Warner, our former superintendent of schools. Jerry was always the teacher. I was a newly elected State legislator at a political event, and Jerry and Carolyn were there. Carolyn Warner said: Do you have a card? I said: Oh, I don't have them with me right now. Jerry Emmett said: Always keep your cards in your pocket. So, Jerry, this is for you.”