Thelma Loyace Stovall (nee Hawkins; April 1, 1919 – February 4, 1994) was a pioneering American politician in the state of Kentucky. In 1949 she won election as state representative for Louisville, and served three consecutive terms. Over the next two decades, Stovall was elected Kentucky State Treasurer twice and Secretary of State of Kentucky three times. She capped her career as the 47th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky (1975–1979) in the administration of her fellow Democrat, Governor Julian Carroll. She was the first woman to hold the office. Stovall was known for her assertive style. Several times in her career, when she found herself in the position of acting governor, she was unafraid of exercising that power – she issued gubernatorial pardons, called the Kentucky General Assembly into session to consider bills, and most famously issued an executive injunction against the Assembly's attempt to repeal Kentucky's ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. Throughout her career, Stovall was an ardent advocate of labor and women's rights. Early life Thelma Loyace Hawkins was born in Munfordville, Kentucky on April 1, 1919. Her parents, Samuel Dewey Hawkins and Addie Mae Goodman Hawkins, divorced when she was eight years old, and she moved with her mother and sister Edith to Louisville. She grew up around political activities: as a child she would hand out papers for her mother, who had become a precinct official in Louisville. The family lived an austere, working class life, a fact Stovall never resented: "I don't think it hurt to do without," she said. At the age of 15, she started working for the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation to support her family during the Great Depression. She joined the Tobacco Workers International Union and became secretary of her local, TWIU 185. She kept that position for 11 years, and remained a stout supporter of labor unions throughout her later political career. While working at the tobacco company, she met L. Raymond Stovall, and the couple married in September 1936, when he was 18 and she was 17. She graduated from Louisville Girls' High School; studied law at LaSalle Extension University in Chicago, and attended summer school at the University of Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky University. Public office Stovall became Louisville's first female state representative: she won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1949 and was re-elected twice. She joined the Young Democrats of Kentucky and served