Political Career
In 1924, women across New Mexico shook up local politics. The first female member of the New Mexico House of Representatives was elected, famed suffragist Adelina Otero-Warren shocked the state by winning the Republican nomination to run - unsuccessfully - for New Mexico's 1st Congressional District, and Georgia Lusk took her first steps into politics, being elected as superintendent of Lea County.
Lusk served in that capacity until 1929, as she made an unsuccessful bid for state Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1928. Though she lost her initial bid, she came back two years later in 1930 to win that office, and serve there until 1935. She briefly left politics to continue raising her children. She returned and during 1941 and 1942 Lusk was a rural school supervisor in Guadalupe County.
Lusk again served as State Superintendent from 1943 to 1947. It was during this time that Lusk provided New Mexico public schools with free textbooks and successfully lobbied the state legislature to fund a school construction plan, raise teacher salaries and institute a teacher's retirement program. These reforms drastically improved New Mexico's public education, and are perhaps Lusk's greatest mark upon the state.
Lusk attended the Democratic National Conventions of 1928 - the first woman to do so for New Mexico - and 1948 as a New Mexico delegate.
Read more about this topic: Georgia Lee Lusk
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