Mayor Kay Boyd (1936-2010)
Lacey City Council
Kay Boyd was appointed to City Council in November 1891 when Mayor Karen Fraser resigned to join the Thurston County Commission. Boyd beat out eleven candidates who had applied to fill the vacancy. Boyd was sworn in on December 18, 1980. In the 1981 election, she ran unopposed and won the seat in her own right. In similar fashion, she won the 1985 election unopposed.
In 1986, when Deputy Mayor Richard Bever declined to be nominated for that position, Kay Boyd was elected to serve as Deputy Mayor and was sworn in on January 9, becoming the first woman in Lacey to be elected Deputy Mayor.
The following year, Mayor Mark Brown resigned and Council elected Kay Boyd as Mayor. She was sworn in as Mayor on February 12, 1987.
Boyd ran for a third time for City Council in 1989 and again was unopposed. In 1990, she was elected to her fourth term as Mayor, but she resigned that position in February 1991.
In 1993, Boyd ran for a final time, but this time lost to opponent Ann Burgman.
Big changes came to Lacey while Boyd served as mayor. Hawks Prairie was annexed following a years-long conflict between pro- and anti-annexation groups, and construction began on the Lacey Timberland Library.
First Female Deputy Mayor
Terms of Office
| Councilmember Position 4 | First Term (Unexpired) | Dec 1980-1981 |
| Second Term | 1982-1985 | |
| Third Term | 1986-1989 | |
| Fourth Term | 1990-1993 | |
| Preceded by | Karen Fraser | |
| Succeeded by | Ann Burgman | |
| Mayor | First Term (Unexpired) | 1987 |
| Second Term | 1988-1989 | |
| Third Term | 1990 | |
| Preceded by | Mark O. Brown | |
| Succeeded by | Gene Liddell | |
| Deputy Mayor | First Term | 1986-1987 |
| Preceded by | Richard Bever | |
| Succeeded by | Dennis Ingham |
Also Ran: Lacey City Council 1993
Biography
Kay Elinor Madison was born in Seattle, Washington on January 20, 1936, to Dan and Dorothy Madison. She grew up with her sister, Geraldine, and attended Franklin High School, graduating in 1953. She attended Washington State University where she met and married Donald Lee Boyd (1933-1993). They had two children, Scott and Lesli.
At the age of 40, Kay obtained a divorce from her husband and the resulting financial hardship forced her and her two children into homelessness. However, through this adversity, Boyd found new goals in her life and quickly set about realizing them. She enrolled at the Evergreen State College and was appointed to the Human Services Review Council, her first role in local government.
Kay graduated from The Evergreen State College in 1976 and eventually became Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the college in 1989. She has a long history of community leadership that included starting a group home for unwed mothers, founding a family planning clinic in Shelton, starting a women’s sharing and support group in Lacey and co-founding the United Singles group.
In 1985, Kay worked to bring the Black Hills Community Hospital (now called the Capital Medical Center) to Olympia, becoming the first Chairman of the Board for the new facility. She was elected that same year as the President of the Thurston County Economic Development Council, which she helped to create.
Kay also had a successful career with the State of Washington which spanned more than 25 years, beginning with the Legislature in 1973 and ending with the Department of Community Development. She was most proud of her administration of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) for six years which she described as a “complex, dynamic program to help the unemployed and disadvantaged.” Typical of both her career in State Government and her decades of public service, she always worked tirelessly to support and protect those that were less fortunate in life.