Gunn Olsen (18 September 1952 – 27 December 2013) was a Norwegian politician for the Labour Party.

Background

Olsen was born in

Kragerø Kragerø () is a List of cities in Norway, town and Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestfold og Telemark Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is part of the Districts of Norway, traditional regions of Grenland and the smaller Vestmar. ...

the daughter of a mechanic and a housewife. She went to commerce school in 1969 but chose not to attend a higher education institution. Instead she was an office clerk in the newspaper ''

Telemark Arbeiderblad ''Telemarksavisa'' is a Norwegian newspaper, published in Skien in Telemark county. ''Telemark Arbeiderblad'' was started on 1 October 1921 as a reaction to the perceived moderate stance of Skien's labour newspaper ''Bratsberg Demokraten''. Howe ...

'' from 1969 to 1990.

Political career

She was a member of

Telemark Telemark is a traditional region, a former county, and a current electoral district in southern Norway. In 2020, Telemark merged with the former county of Vestfold to form the county of Vestfold og Telemark. Telemark borders the traditional ...

county council A county council is the elected administrative body governing an area known as a county. This term has slightly different meanings in different countries. Ireland The county councils created under British rule in 1899 continue to exist in Irela ...

from 1983 to 1999, serving as deputy county mayor from 1990 to 1995. She has chaired the county party chapter, and been a member of the Labour Party national board. In the

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

of Kragerø she has only been a deputy member, from 1979 to 1983. She served as a deputy representative to the Norwegian Parliament from

during the terms 1985–1989 and 1989–1993. She was elected as a full representative in

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of t ...

, and was re-elected in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

and

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

. She sat on a different Standing Committee during each of her four parliamentary terms.

Death

Olsen did not stand for re-election in

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

because she had been diagnosed with cancer. She died from this disease in December 2013 at Marienlyst in Kragerø.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olsen, Gunn 1952 births 2013 deaths People from Kragerø Politicians from Telemark Labour Party (Norway) politicians Members of the Storting Women members of the Storting Deaths from cancer in Norway 21st-century Norwegian politicians 21st-century Norwegian women politicians 20th-century Norwegian politicians 20th-century Norwegian women politicians