CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Marilyn Lloyd, the first Tennessee woman elected to a full term in Congress, has died. She was 89.
Lloyd's family said in a statement that the congresswoman died Wednesday.
The Chattanooga Democrat represented Tennessee's 3rd Congressional District for 10 terms, from 1975 until she retired in 1995. She never lost a House election.
Lloyd was born in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in 1929. After her husband, Mort Lloyd, died in a 1974 plane crash, she replaced the local news anchor as the Democratic nominee for the House and won the seat.
A breast cancer survivor, Lloyd advocated for the Mammography Quality Standards Act, which became law in 1992.
Lloyd's youngest son, Morty Lloyd, called his mother a woman of great tenacity who charted a path for women in Congress.