Elaine Marshall

Elaine F. Marshall ( born November 18, 1945 in Lineboro, Carroll County, Maryland) is an American politician and the acting Secretary of State ( Secretary of State ), the state of North Carolina. She is the first woman to be elected to this office, and also the first woman ever elected in North Carolina in an executive national office.

Training

Marshall studied from 1964 to 1968 textile engineering at the University of Maryland and graduated with a Bachelor of Science. During her studies she worked during the summer as a camp director for the Maryland 4-H Foundation. She taught after graduating a year in the public school system of Lenoir County, North Carolina, and then operating for five years as a book and gift shop, before she started to work again as a teacher at Lenoir Community College and Johnston Technical Community College. At the same time, she was active in the Young Democrats of America, the youth wing of the Democrats.

She decided to study law at the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University and received her Juris Doctor in 1981. Then they rose in 1985 as a partner in a law firm in Lillington, and in 1991 chairman of the Democrats in Harnett County.

Political career

Elaine Marshall was first elected in 1992 as a member of the Senate of North Carolina in a public office and represented the 15th district. She stood against the Republicans and former stock car driver Richard Petty for election to the office of the Secretary of State. In January 1997 she was elected as the first woman in a reigning Office of the State. Marshall was re- elected in 2000 and 2004 and 2008.

Marshall competed first time in 2002 to a seat in the U.S. Senate, but lost in the Democratic primary against their party colleagues Erskine Bowles. In 2010 she was nominated by her party against State Senator Cal Cunningham for the Senate election, but she was defeated by Republican incumbent Richard Burr with 43:54 percent of the vote.

She was married twice, first with Solomon Marshall and then with Bill Hold Ford (2001 - 2009), who both died of cancer. She has no children, but five stepchildren.