Olene Walker

Olene Walker died of natural causes on November 28, 2015, thirteen days after her 85th birthday.

In 2012 Walker created the Olene S. Walker Institute of Politics & Public Service to "help foster in Weber State University students and the broader community the ideals of public service and political engagement that motivated her decades-long career in Utah politics." The Walker Institute coordinates internships for Weber State University students, holds public forums and debates on public policy issues, and provides leadership and engaged-citizenship workshops for students and the community at large.

Walker was married to Myron Walker; they had seven children and twenty-five grandchildren. Walker and her husband were Latter-day Saints (Mormons). She and her husband served as International Affairs missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New York City. Starting in spring of 2010 she served as the Primary president in the Bloomington 7th Ward on the south side of St. George, Utah.

In May 2010 the Utah County Democratic Party gave Walker its first distinguished service award.

Walker assumed the office of Governor of the State of Utah after previous governor Mike Leavitt was nominated by President George W. Bush to lead the Environmental Protection Agency in 2003. Walker served as governor until the end of the term on January 3, 2005.

In a move that caused a degree of controversy within the state, the Utah Republican Party at its convention on May 8, 2004, elected not to place Walker on the ballot for the party primary (held on June 22, 2004), selecting instead Jon Huntsman, Jr. and Nolan Karras as the two potential Republican party candidates for the office of Governor of the State of Utah, the first time in 48 years that an incumbent Utah governor failed to win a party nomination. Huntsman went on to win the primary election with more than 66% of the vote. These events effectively ruled out any possibility of Walker being on the ballot in the 2004 general election. Convention delegates defended their choice by claiming that many of the delegates were already pledged to other candidates, because Walker had served only six months as Governor before the party convention. She had also waited until two months before the nominating convention to choose to run for re-election, giving her rivals a head start to build their campaigns. She left office with an 87% approval rating.

In 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune named her Utahn of the Year.

Two of her brothers and their wives died in a plane crash on February 28, 1981.

Olene Walker (née Smith; November 15, 1930 – November 28, 2015) was an American politician who served as the 15th governor of Utah from 2003 to 2005, succeeding the governorship after Mike Leavitt's resignation. A member of the Republican Party, Walker was Utah's first female governor and the first female Lieutenant Governor of Utah.

Walker was born Olene Smith in Ogden, Utah, in 1930 to Thomas Ole Smith and Nina (née Hadley) Smith, the second of their five children. She graduated from Weber High School. Walker received her bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in 1953, her master's from Stanford University, and her doctorate in education administration from the University of Utah.