ON JANUARY 1, 2019, I became only the third woman to serve in the office of chief justice since statehood in 1907. When I attended law school at the University of Oklahoma in the mid-1970s, no woman had ever served on the United States Supreme Court, let alone the Oklahoma Supreme Court. A longtime friend recently reminded me that I had expressed the desire to be a justice on the Oklahoma Supreme Court while we were in law school. I am continually awed and amazed that I have the honor to serve in this capacity.
As I sit at the desk of the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma and reflect on the past twenty-two months, I am honored to be a public servant. As chief justice, the challenges I face are pale in comparison to the challenges we have weathered in 2020 as citizens of Oklahoma. As the leader of the state judiciary, my years of experience as a judge on three separate courts have been extremely valuable. I had an Esther moment recently thinking that all I had worked so hard for over the past forty-two years—practicing law and serving on three different state courts in Oklahoma—was for such a time as this.