From collection Candidates
Mary C. Roark was elected to the School Board in Lexington, Kentucky in 1895. She was one of four women who campaigned that year in the city. All four were elected as part of an Independent ticket. Roark was an educator serving as president of a Normal School and as an officer of the Southern Educational Association. She later served as the president of Eastern Kentucky University (1909-1910), filling the remainder of her husband's term in that office. Roark worked with the Woman's Council Committee and the Kentucky Equal Rights Association and was an active suffragist in the first decade of the twentieth century.
