Barbara Weymann
The Honorable Barbara Weymann first woman to serve on the Tucson City Council was and remains a feminist devoted to the cause of women's equality. As the first woman on the council, she battled initial resistance to her role on the Council from city department heads as well as fellow council members. Eventually they realized she was not going away and cooperated with her agenda. As a Councilmember Barbara assumed a leadership role in generating the ordinances that would establish the Tucson Women's Commission and the ordinance banning discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. She supported local feminist groups that sought funding to start the original Rape Crisis Center and enabled initial Department of Justice Funding to be channeled through the City of Tucson to the Center. She advocated vigorously for the appointment of the first woman to serve on the Civil Service Commission Herschella Horton. Following her tenure on the City Council Barbara became the director of the YWCA of Tucson. Born in Santa Monica, CA in 1933 Barbara grew up in the West Los Angeles and Santa Monica areas. She was one of three women in her class at Pomona College to major in mathematics! In 1963 while in California she joined the League of Women Voters and when she an astronomer husband Ray moved to Tucson, she continued her activism through the Tucson branch of the League. In this capacity she was responsible for a study of the number of registered voters compared to the eligible voters. She presented the study results to the Board of supervisors. This resulted in a mobile van that went throughout the County registering people to vote. On leaving the YWCA position Barbara returned to her first career of computer programming. She worked at Bell Technical Operations for five years. She and Ray returned to California in 1986 where she worked for Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a systems analyst. She worked on two different satellite projects designed to study the earth's atmospheric conditions. Both of them are still flying today! Barbara is now retired. She and Ray live in Atascadero and recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. (2006)