Lena Beal was a Joplin business owner and civic leader, remembered as the first woman elected to Joplin City Council and the first woman appointed mayor.
Known forLena Beal was a Joplin business owner and civic leader, remembered as the first woman elected to Joplin City Council and the first woman appointed mayor.
Lena Grindstaff Hollingsworth Beal moved to Joplin in 1946 after her husband bought and became president of Joplin Business College. When he died that same year, Beal assumed ownership of the college and operated it until 1972.
Her civic record made her one of Joplin's important women leaders of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to serve on the board of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce, the first woman elected to Joplin City Council in 1968, the first woman appointed mayor, and the first woman to receive the Chamber's Outstanding Citizen Award.
Beal's profile belongs in the People directory as a business owner, public servant, and civic board leader whose work widened women's representation in Joplin public life. Burial references identify her as Lena Grindstaff Hollingsworth Beal, 1904-1995, buried at Ozark Memorial Park Cemetery in Joplin.