Jessie Thatcher Bost

Jessie Olive Thatcher Bost (December 16, 1875 – 1963) was the first female graduate of Oklahoma State University. Though Bost was born in Guthrie Center, Iowa, her family moved to Stillwater in 1891, and she enrolled at the university (then known as Oklahoma A&M College) when it opened later that year. She graduated in 1897 alongside two male students in the university's second graduating class; a bout of typhoid fever had prevented her from graduating with the first class the previous year. After graduating, Bost worked as a public school teacher in Stillwater. She married Henry Bost in 1902; the couple had four children and moved to Alva in 1908. Bost remained involved with the university and became the first president of its Alumni Association in 1902 and the Half-Century Club in 1954. The university named its first female dormitory for Bost when it opened in 1925.^[1][2]

Bost was inducted into the Oklahoma Women's Hall of Fame in 1997.^[3]

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