Darlene Hooley
American politician (born 1939)
Darlene Kay Olson Hooley (born April 4, 1939) is an American politician and former Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon who represented the state's 5th congressional district.
A high school teacher by profession, she served as a city councilwoman, state legislator, and county commissioner in Oregon before being elected to the House in 1996. In her post-congressional career, she remains engaged in civic life in Oregon and works as a strategic planning consultant.
Early life
Darlene Kay Olson was born in Williston, North Dakota to Clarence Alvin and Alyce Rogers Olson, who were wheat farmers. She moved with her parents to Salem, Oregon at the age of 8. She attended Salem Academy, and then Pasadena Nazarene College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) in southern California, where she also worked as a lifeguard. She returned to Oregon and earned her degree in education from Oregon State University in 1961, where she was on the basketball, field hockey, and rowing teams. Following her graduation, she taught reading, music, and high school physical education for eight years at schools in Woodburn, Gervais, and Portland. She also did post-graduate work at Oregon State and Portland State University.
Early political career
Hooley became interested in politics after her son was injured on a playground in West Linn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Darlene Hooley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.