Former Delaware governor Ruth Ann Minner dead at 86

By RANDALL CHASE
Associated Press

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Ruth Ann Minner, the only woman to serve as Delaware’s governor, has died. She was 86. Agriculture Secretary Michael Scuse a close friend and former chief of staff for Minner, said she died Thursday morning. Minner was a sharecropper’s daughter and a high school dropout who was twice widowed. She got her first taste of politics as a legislative bill clerk and rose through the Democratic Party ranks to become the state’s most powerful politician. Her achievements include signing one of the nation’s toughest indoor smoking bans into law in 2002 and overseeing the creation of a council charged with reducing Delaware’s cancer rates. She also was instrumental in the establishment of a state scholarship program that has provided free college tuition to more than 13,000 Delaware residents.