Who was the first governor of the eighth least populous U.S. state?
Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ), officially the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is the smallest in area, the eighth least populous, and the second most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. Its official name is also the longest of any state in the Union. Rhode Island is bordered by Connecticut to the west, Massachusetts to the north and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound. It also shares a small maritime border with New York.
Martha Layne Collins Martha Layne Collins (née Hall; born December 7, 1936) is an American former businesswoman and politician from the U.S. state of Kentucky; she was elected as the state's 56th governor from 1983 to 1987, the first woman to hold the office and the only one to date. Prior to that, she served as the 48th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky, under John Y. Brown, Jr. Her election made her the highest-ranking Democratic woman in the U.S. She was considered as a possible running mate for Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election, but Mondale chose Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro instead.