Sharon Mary Priest (née Devlin; born September 12, 1947) is a Canadian-American politician and businessperson. Priest was mayor of

Little Rock, Arkansas (The Little Rock, The "Little Rock") , government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager , leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_ ...

from 1991 to 1992 before being the first woman elected to the role of

Secretary of State of Arkansas The secretary of state of Arkansas is one of the elected constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The current Secretary of State is Republican John Thurston, former Arkansas land commissioner from Pulaski County in central Arkansa ...

in 1994. She was re-elected in 1998 and her tenure ended in 2003. During her terms in office, she introduced an internet-based Information Network of Arkansas, encouraged participation in elections and in the

2000 US Census The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 cen ...

, and worked towards electoral reform. She also served as president of the

National Association of Secretaries of State The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), founded in 1904, is the oldest non-partisan professional organization of public officials in the United States, composed of the secretaries of state of U.S. states and territories. Currentl ...

Background

Priest was born on September 12, 1947, in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. She worked in Canada with a distributor for the American company Munsey Products before moving to

, upon her marriage in 1974. While in Little Rock, Priest prepared taxes for H & R Block from 1976 to 1978 and worked at a real estate company she had opened from 1983 to 1986. She later was a membership director for a

chamber of commerce A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to ad ...

from 1990 to 1994. During this time period, Priest started her political career as a member of the

board of directors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...

(

city 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 counc ...

) for Little Rock in 1986. For the city, she was the

deputy mayor The deputy mayor (also known as vice mayor, assistant mayor, or mayor ''pro tem'') is an elective or appointive office of the second-ranking official that is present in many, but not all, local governments. Duties and functions Many elected dep ...

of Little Rock from 1989 to 1990 and reappointed to the board of directors in 1990. The following year, Priest became the mayor of Little Rock in January and held her mayorship until December 1992. Running as a

Democrat Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to: Politics *A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people. *A member of a Democratic Party: **Democratic Party (United States) (D) **Democratic ...

in 1994, Priest beat Julia Hughes Jones to become the

. With her win, Priest became the first woman to take office as Secretary of State of Arkansas as the result of an election. Overall, Priest was the second woman to become Arkansas's secretary of state, as Nancy J. Hall was appointed after her husband died during his office term in 1961. Priest was reelected as Arkansas's Secretary of State in 1998, defeating candidate Rose Bryant Jones. She remained as Secretary of State for Arkansas until 2003. During her years in office, Priest made information about the state government, and held in the office of the Secretary of State, more accessible. In 1995, she launched the internet-based Information Network of Arkansas, and also reduced the cost of photocopies of information held in the Secretary of State's offices from 80c per page to 25c per page. She attempted to boost the number of people voting in elections through programs such as "Honor a Vet with a Vote", designed to raise awareness "that voting is a precious right", and Mock Election, a program for high schools students which won an award offered by

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Mar ...

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. During 2000, she visited all counties of Arkansas to encourage participation in the federal census, after estimates that around 42,000 residents of Arkansas were omitted from the 1990 US census, resulting in a loss of $280,000,000 in federal funding. Priest also served as president of the

, and chaired a committee of the association which investigated possible election reforms at the national level, and made 15 recommendations intended to avoid the voting problems of the 2000 US presidential election. Within Arkansas, Priest also wanted to change the method of tracking ballots, so that they would no longer be linked to individual voters. However, the proposed electoral reforms foundered due to a downturn in the economy, and Priest was reported as saying, "Unless there's a real uprising on the part of the people in this country who will call their congressmen and senators and say, "Elections are important to us and democracy comes at a price, and we're willing to pay that price – do something!" then I'm not sure, running into budgets now, that anything's going to get done." After her governmental position for Arkansas ended, Priest worked at the Downtown Little Rock Partnership from 2003 to 2015 as an executive director. In the late 2010s, Priest became a bookkeeper for a plumbing company run by her son.

References

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Priest, Sharon 1947 births Living people Businesspeople from Montreal Canadian financial businesspeople Deputy mayors Mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas Secretaries of State of Arkansas Women city councillors in Arkansas Arkansas city council members Canadian emigrants to the United States Politicians from Montreal 20th-century American women politicians 20th-century American politicians Women in finance American financial businesspeople Arkansas Democrats Women mayors of places in Arkansas People with acquired American citizenship 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesswomen 21st-century American businesspeople 20th-century American businesswomen