BREAKING THROUGH SERIES 2020 |
Wilkins remembered as the ‘first lady of Democratic politics’ ELYSIA CONNER
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For the Star-Tribune
dness Kimball Wilkins served as a Democrat in a Republican state. But her party affiliation didn’t keep her from gaining respect from politicians on both sides of the aisle. Wilkins served more than two decades in the Wyoming Legislature. She was Wyoming’s first female Speaker of the House, an assistant to the director of the U.S. Mint, a historian and rancher. She made such an impact on Wyoming that a state park just east of Casper now bears her name. “My respect for Edness Kimball Wilkins crossed all party lines,” then-Wyoming House Speaker Warren A. Morton said in a July 1980 newspaper article that was published shortly after her death. “In the Legislature, she was a woman of indomitable will and amazing strength. She was certainly the First Lady of Democratic politics in Wyoming.” Sen. Charles Scott, R-Natrona County, started his first term in the Legislature during Wilkins’ last. He recalled growing up with partisan Republican parents while she was a Democrat in the House. While his parents wanted Wilkins defeated at the ballot box, when Scott had an opportunity to meet her, he was impressed. “And once I got to know her,” Scott said, “she was a very good legislator.”
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Wilkins came from a family of early Casper settlers. She graduated from Casper High School and attended the University of Kentucky and University of Nebraska, according to the Wyoming Blue Book Volume IV. Wilkins’ husband, Capt. Roland Wilkins, died in 1933 from an apparent blood clot while the infantry officer was stationed in Hawaii. Wilkins “was left as the sole support of the couple’s young son, Charles,” according to an editorial piece in the July 17, 1980, edition of the Star-Tribune. After her husband’s death, Wilkins accepted Nellie Tayloe Ross’ invitation to work as her personal secretary at the U.S. Mint in Washington D.C. “Besides having a good working relationship, the two became close friends, and their friendship lasted until Ross’ death in 1977,” according to Wilkins’ bi-
Casper lawmaker earned
RESPECT across party lines
CASPER STAR-TRIBUNE COLLECTION, CASPER COLLEGE WESTERN HISTORY CENTER
ography on the Rocky Mountain Online Archive. Wilkins in 1947 returned to her hometown to help her ill father, Wilson S. Kimball, who’d been a druggist and Casper mayor for 10 terms, according to her obituary and biographical information in Wilkins’ papers at the Wyoming State Archives. She worked in the personnel department for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and then as manager of the city’s water and sanitation department. After her father died, she managed the Kimball ranch east of Casper. Wilkins served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1955-1967 and 1973-80 and was a state senator from 1967-71. She was a delegate twice to the National Democratic Convention. She became Wyoming’s first female Speaker of the House in 1966 after Speaker Walter Phelan’s death, although she was elected to the Senate the next fall and didn’t serve as speaker during a legislative session, according to wyohistory. org. Wilkins was the first woman in Wy-
oming to be chairman of the Legislature’s labor committee, and she was the third woman in the state Senate in 101 years, according to her biographical information at the Wyoming State Archives. An August 1978 Star-Tribune story described her as a pioneer, historian and rancher whose work in the Legislature included championing for people with disabilities and the elderly. Wilkins in one legislative session, “successfully opposed an attempt by the Ways and Means Committee to cut the salaries of women employees of the state, and raise the salaries of the men,” according to a Casper Tribune Herald story from 1958. She told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in 1975 that women are needed in Wyoming’s government and should be represented. “In the past there were usually two of us and at times as high as four,” she’d said. “I remember years ago people would ask me, ‘With all the equality you women are so proud of, you haven’t taken advantage of it.’ In those days it was a vast country, and a woman couldn’t go out and campaign.
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“Women were scarce, and as wives with children they couldn’t get out into government.”
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Jerre Jones worked for the Casper Journal for many years and often happened across Wilkins around the community. She remembers her passion for the Democratic Party and for telling stories about local history. “I think she liked to kind of give them a little excitement in her stories,” Jones said. Former Wyoming legislator Mary Hales lived with Wilkins when she arrived in Casper fresh from college to work for the Casper Girl Scouts. Wilkins served on the board. “She was a very gracious person.” Hales said. “She took me to the Wyoming Pioneers group one of the first weekends that I was there.” Wilkins invited her to tea in the middle of one afternoon, and Hales arrived home to find Nellie Tayloe Ross, the nation’s first female governor, resting on a chaise lounge. “So the three of us had high tea” at a downtown dime store, Hales recalled, laughing. Scott, the Natrona County lawmaker, remembers Wilkins’ big issue was excluding groceries from the sales tax. While campaigning on the issue, she would push a cart through grocery stores and talk with shoppers about the tax. “And she didn’t need those things she put in the cart,” Scott said. “When she’d talked to everybody in the store, she pushed the cart off in a corner and just departed. And then they had to restock the shelves. And I understand the grocery stores were kind of mad at her, but they didn’t dare do anything about it.” Scott remembers Wilkins’ skill maneuvering through the legislative process. He once watcher her kill a rightto-records bill that concerned her for its lack of privacy protections — including one important to Kimball herself, who never revealed how old she was, Scott said. “Why, if this bill were to pass, they could print my age in the newspapers,” he recalled her saying. “And that bill, it went down like a dead heifer,” Scott said. Wilkins’ contributions to Wyoming led to the establishment of a state park that bears her name on what had been her ranch outside of Casper. In a bit of irony, the bill establishing that park was Scott’s second to become law. “It was a fitting honor for Edness, for having served as many years as she did,” he said.
