Join us Saturday, May 24th from 2-4pm as we celebrate the Good Angel of Oklahoma, Kate Barnard with a proclamation by Mayor Monroe Nichols and Book Signing with authors: Michael Wallis, Connie Cronley, Randy Krehbiel, and Rilla Askew. With guest speakers and Live Music by the Cowbop trio, Swing West, photo opportunity with Kate Barnard, and cookies!

This event is Free and open to the public!

Kate Barnard was the first woman elected to state office in Oklahoma in 1907 as Commissioner of Charities and Corrections, fourteen years before women's suffrage. Responsible for the state's 300+ hospitals, orphanages and correctional institutions, she was rigorous in implementing modern treatment and benevolent care.

Enormously popular, she was known nationally as The Good Angel of Oklahoma and was a fiery and fierce social reformer who championed education, child labor laws, compassionate mental health care, criminal justice reform and Native American rights. When she threw the legal power of her office to defending wealthy Indian orphans whose estates were being plundered on a massive scale by graft, populace and Fourth Legislature turned against her. To stop her, state legislators cut the funding to her office. It destroyed her office, her career and her life.

She died in 1930 at age 55. In her short passionate career she was a woman of great moral courage. She left a legacy of heroic help for the state's poor, hospitalized, incarcerated and helpless. Above all she advocated for education and children.

Come celebrate the life and legacy of The Good Angel of Oklahoma, Kate Barnard!