A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard book discussion with author Connie CronleyAugust 31, 1:30 p.m. Event NavigationOn Saturday, August 31, at 1 p.m., inside the Pioneer Woman Museum, author Connie Cronley (Cherokee) will discuss the life of Kate Barnard, the first woman elected to a statewide office in Oklahoma. Barnard was elected at a time when women were not allowed to vote. Cronley’s award-winning book, A Life on Fire: Oklahoma’s Kate Barnard, is the biography of Barnard, a popular social reformer who dedicated herself to political and social reform on behalf of orphans, the mentally ill, the incarcerated, and the poor. She conducted inspections and reported egregious misconduct involving American Indian properties in Osage County—years before the FBI arrived to investigate the deaths of headright owners, as recounted in David Grann’s book, Killers of the Flower Moon. Connie Cronley is the author of three books of essays--Sometimes a Wheel Falls Off, Light and Variable, and Poke a Stick at It--and coauthor with the late Edward Perkins of Mr. Ambassador: Warrior for Peace. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and lives in Tulsa. |