Washington: Dixy Lee Ray

I found out the hard way that the best way to attract lots of calls and e-mails is to say that Dixy Lee Ray is from Tacoma.

Sure, she graduated from Stadium High School but the place that claims her as their own – even when others were rejecting her – is Fox Island. That's where she lived for most of her adulthood (when not in Olympia as governor or Washington, D.C. as chairwoman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Her home there also was her escape while serving as the state's first female governor from 1977 to 1981.

So it is appropriate that the historical museum would gather some Dixy stuff and put it on display.

Here is an article on the exhibit in our sister paper, the Peninsula Gateway.