They nicknamed her The Iron Magnolia.
A feisty, attractive woman, she wasn’t afraid of politics. A former schoolteacher, she was first elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 1980, defeating the incumbent Robert Murphy.
At that time, she was only the third woman ever elected to the Oklahoma Senate. She served there until 1996.
She had a deep understanding of what it took to get things done and, at the same time, she knew when to play hardball and when just to smile and nod.
Bernice Shedrick - who hailed from Stillwater - was known across the state and across a good portion of the country as an expert on education. She was well schooled, holding both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Oklahoma State University.
During her tenure in the Senate, she decided she wanted to become an attorney. While serving, she attended Oklahoma City University’s School of Law, earning her juris doctorate and becoming a member of the bar.
In 1994 she ran against Jack Mildren, seeking the Democratic nomination for governor. She lost that race but at the same time, she left her mark on future gubernatorial elections.
In the Senate, she was the principal author of the huge education reform bill, House Bill 1017. She was also responsible for the creation of the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics and heavily involved in the creation of University Center at Tulsa.
Married and the mother of three, Shedrick embraced her family just as she was embraced to politics. She never apologized for being a Democrat but, at the same time, she was willing to work with those across the aisle, if both sides agreed on the central idea.
It was difficult to intimidate her. And though many tried, few succeeded.
“I never held myself out to necessarily be a woman, I held myself out to be a senator and I wanted to be a good senator and I wanted to be a senator where my word was good and if I gave it, I kept it,” she told a historian during an oral history project. “And I believe that’s the reputation I created.”
And with only three women in the Senate, Shedrick knew she had to be smart and focused and that for her to succeed, she needed the respect of her colleagues.
“At the time, the average age of the gentlemen in the Senate was, I’m thinking 65.1 was 40. They’d been there, most of them, a long time. That was before term limits,” she said. “You might say it was a club, in that respect, in terms of fraternalism, so to speak. So, there were a lot of events that I was not included in and I knew it. But I gained their respect, more importantly, by reading every bill. And soon while in session, many of them would come over and say, ‘Shedrick, what’s in this bill?’ Because they hadn’t had time because it’s an immense amount of dedication you make to be able to read every bill that comes on the floor before it’s voted upon.“ That focus would set her apart from her colleagues.
After her tenure, Shedrick worked as a volunteer and continued her legal work. Today, the library at the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics bears her name - a designation few other lawmakers have earned.
Feisty, hardworking and, yes at times, difficult to work with, Bernice Shedrick understood Oklahoma’s needs and she understood its people. While many criticized her, she also understood what the state needed to do to improve its educational system.
Senator Bernice Shedrick died on Tuesday, Jan. 20. She was 85.
The results of her efforts remain. She will be missed.
M. Scott Carter is an award-winning political and investigative reporter with more than 40years’ experience covering federal and state government and politics in Oklahoma. He can be reached at scott.carter@swoknews.com.