Norma Petersen Paulus grew up Depression-poor in Eastern Oregon, survived a bout with polio in her teens, taught herself to be a legal secretary, and graduated from law school with honors despite not attending college first. Anyone with such a story would be remarkable, but she was just getting started.
 
Paulus came from a family of Roosevelt Democrats, but when a friend campaigned for a Republican seat in the state legislature, she switched parties. As she put it, “The Republicans were in politics for all the right reasons.” Amid the nationwide political upheavals of the late 1960s, Oregon’s Republicans, led by popular governor Tom McCall, seemed to be her kind of people—principled, pragmatic, and committed to education, the environment, and equality for all citizens under the law.
 
Paulus’s appointment by Governor McCall to the Marion-Polk Boundary Commission in 1969, a precursor to Oregon’s urban growth boundaries, helped launched her on a long and distinguished career of public service. She ran successfully for the Oregon House of Representatives in 1970, the first women to do so in the district. After three terms in the House, where she championed environmental causes, women’s rights and government transparency, she was elected Oregon’s Secretary of State in 1976—the first woman to hold that office and be elected to a statewide office in Oregon. She was the Republican candidate for governor in 1986, served a stint on the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, went on to become Oregon’s superintendent of public instruction, and headed the Oregon Historical Society.
 
During her years of public service, spanning the 1970s through the early 2000s, Norma Paulus occupied a distinctive niche in Oregon’s progressive political ecosystem. Her vivid personality and strong convictions endeared her to a broad swath of citizens. Beautiful and opinionated, charming and forceful, Paulus was widely covered in statewide and national newspapers and television during her eventful, sometimes controversial career. Now, The Only Woman in the Room sums up her life and work in a lively, anecdotal history that will appeal to historians, political scientists, newshounds, and ordinary citizens alike.

Norma Paulus is a lawyer and republican politician in the state of Oregon. She was elected as a representative to the Oregon state legislature in 1970 and served three terms representing Marion County. Paulus then became the first woman elected to statewide office in Oregon as Secretary of State in 1976. After a narrow loss in her run for governor, Paulus served on the Northwest Power Planning Council, two terms as Oregon Superintendent of Public Instruction, and as the executive director of the Oregon Historical Society. She now lives in Portland where she has been involved with several non-profit groups and sponsored a ballot measure to create open primaries in Oregon's statewide elections.
 
Gail Wells is the author of six books and numerous articles and essays. She writes and speaks about Ore-gon’s distinctive environment, politics, and culture. She collaborated with the late Betty Roberts on her memoir With Grit and By Grace, and has written her own memoir, The Little Lucky. She works at Oregon State University and lives in Corvallis.
 
Pat McCord Amacher is a former newspaper reporter and teacher of writing who works in business communications and writes freelance in creative nonfiction. Over her 30 years in Oregon as a transplanted Midwesterner, she has developed a special interest in the state’s history and art.