Pat Hale
Patricia S. "Pat" Hale (Republican) served the 8th Legislative District which represented most of Benton County, including Richland, Kennewick and Prosser. She was appointed to the State Senate in November, 1994 to serve an unexpired term. She served

Patricia S. Hale (January 9, 1937 – September 26, 2025) was an American politician of the Republican Party.
Hale was born in Durham, North Carolina. She studied marketing at the University of North Carolina and economics at the University of Richmond. She moved from her home state in 1983 to the Tri-Cities, Washington, area to work for Hanford, which later became Fluor and Westinghouse Hanford.
She was a member of the Washington State Senate, representing the 8th district from 1994 to 2004. While in office, she served as Republican Caucus Chair from 1999–2003 and the Majority Whip in 1997–1998.
In 2004, she resigned to serve on the National Advisory Council for the Small Business Administration.
Hale died on September 26, 2025, at the age of 88.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Pat Hale” is patricia S. "Pat" Hale (Republican) served the 8th Legislative District which represented most of Benton County, including Richland, Kennewick and Prosser. She was appointed to the State Senate in November, 1994 to serve an unexpired term. She served. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hale, Patricia and Republican, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “patricia S. "Pat" Hale (Republican) served the 8th Legislative District which represented most of Benton County, including Richland, Kennewick and Prosser. She was appointed to the State Senate in November, 1994 to serve an unexpired term. She served” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q111091148. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2025, 1983 and 1994.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Pat Hale”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Pat Hale primary sources, Pat Hale archive and Hale research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Pat Hale”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Pat Hale” 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.