Former six-term 3rd District Congresswoman Jan Meyers passed away early Friday. She was 90.
Meyers’ former chief of staff, Mike Murray, early Friday evening confirmed the congresswoman’s passing.
Meyers represented Kansas’ 3rd District from 1985 to 1996 before retiring and giving way to Vince Snowbarger, who succeeded her in office in 1997.
Meyers’ political career began on the Overland Park City Council in 1967. She went to the Kansas Senate in 1972 before moving to Congress in 1985.
In 1995, Meyers became the first Republican woman in more than 40 years to chair a standing House committee when she was named by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to head up the Small Business Committee.
Meyers’ biography on the U.S. House website shows a congresswoman who would not back down from her convictions.
“Listen to your conscience and your constituents—both,” Meyers is quoted as saying.
“Most of the time they’ll agree. If your conscience is different than your constituents’, then you’ll have a hard time.”
The House website shows that Meyers was born on July 20, 1928, in Lincoln, Nebraska.
She was the daughter of Howard M. Crilly, a newspaper publisher, and Lenore N. (Hazel) Crilly, according to the House biography.
“Janice Crilly and her brother, Donn, were raised in Superior, Nebraska, where her father ran the local newspaper, The Superior Express, beginning in the mid–1930s,” the House profile states.
She graduated in 1948 with an associate degree from William Woods College in Fulton, Missouri.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Nebraska in 1951.
From 1951 to 1954, Meyers worked as an advertising and public relations assistant for a radio station in Omaha and a department store in Lincoln, according to the Kansas Historical Society.
Meyers started her career in Kansas politics in 1966 when she chaired Larry Winn Jr.’s campaign for the U.S. House.
She later co–chaired the first of Bob Dole’s Senate races. In 1974, she chaired Republican Bob Bennett’s gubernatorial campaign in Johnson County.
She served on the Overland Park City Council from 1967 to 1972 before winning a seat in the state Senate.
During her time in the Senate, she chaired the public health and welfare committee in addition to the local government committee, according to the U.S. House profile.
In 1978, Meyers entered the Republican primary for U.S. Senate but finished fourth in a contest ultimately won by Nancy Kassebaum, the House profile states.
