Stone, Kara Lynn
(born: Nov. 30, 1929 - died: June 5, 1999)Kara L. Stone, born in Louisville, KY, was the daughter of Olevia B. Noland and J. Lynn Stone. She grew up in Richmond, KY, where she graduated from Richmond High School in 1947. She attended Knoxville College, where she was named to the honor roll for the fall quarter of 1951.
After teaching for a couple of years, Kara Stone joined the WACs and spent three years in France. She returned to the U.S. and in 1962 graduated from Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) with a Master of Arts degree, then taught at several locations, including the Louisville School for the Blind; the Paris, KY School System; the gifted student program in Simpsonville, KY (sponsored by the University of Kentucky); and in schools in Maryland for five years before returning to Richmond, where she was hired as a history teacher at EKU.
While at EKU, Stone worked for Central University College (CUC) from 1967-1969. CUC was a unit inside EKU that handled only freshmen and sophomore general education. In 1969, she was hired as a faculty member at EKU, becoming the first African American female professor at EKU.
Stone also served as president of the Richmond-Madison County NAACP Branch in 1982, speaking out against racist statements made by local persons in Richmond and discrimination by government agencies and those in housing, education, and public utility companies.
A. B. Dunston completed Kara Stone's oral history in 1993; the recording is part of the African American Community of Madison County Oral History Project at Eastern Kentucky University Libraries. It has been mistakenly written that Kara Stone was the first African American to graduate from Eastern Kentucky University; that error has been corrected in this entry.
Kara L. Stone died in Richmond and is buried in Maple Grove Cemetery.
*Military presence verified in National Archives, Access to Archival Databases.
For more information about Kara Stone, contact EKU Special Collections and Archives; and see Kara L. Stone in the Kentucky Birth Index in Ancestry; "Society: Personals," Sunday Herald-Leader, 1/13/1952, p. 28; the Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death Files in Ancestry; the Social Security Applications and Claims Index in Ancestry; Who's Who Among African Americans, 1980-2004; "Richmond boomed after World War II," The Lexington Leader, 8/2/1982, p. 20; "Letters to the Editor: Check the facts, part two," Lexington Herald, 11/15/1982, p. 16; and M. Bailey, "Richmond teacher has made a lasting impression," Lexington Herald-Leader, 10/10/1984, Lifestyle section, p. D1.
*Updates and corrections were made to this entry with information provided by Eastern Kentucky University Special Collections and Archives [Library Associate, Sarah Adams], 2/12/2016.