Kay Granger carried a Fort Worth sensibility from a high school classroom and the city's zoning commission to the chair of the House committee that controls federal spending. Granger, Fort Worth's first woman mayor and the first Republican woman from Texas elected to Congress, died on August 2, 2026, at 83.

Her path into public life began far from Washington. Born in Greenville and raised in Fort Worth, she graduated from Eastern Hills High School and earned a science degree from Texas Wesleyan University in 1965. She taught English literature and journalism in the Birdville school district for nine years, then built and ran an insurance agency for more than two decades. Those roles gave her experience in the classroom, in business and in the practical concerns of working families before she ever held office.

Granger first entered the machinery of local government through the Fort Worth Zoning Commission in 1981. Eight years later she joined the City Council. In 1991, voters made her the first woman to serve as mayor of Fort Worth. Her mayoral work included Code: Blue citizen patrols and business partnerships aimed at public safety and economic growth. The Associated Press reported that the programs cut the city's crime rate by about half and drew national attention to Fort Worth's economic recovery.

That local record carried her into the 1996 congressional race. She won as a Republican and began representing Texas's 12th District in January 1997. The official U.S. House historian records 14 consecutive Congresses, a 28-year tenure that ended in January 2025. Her election itself broke a barrier: no Republican woman from Texas had previously served in the House.

Appropriations became the center of her congressional career. She joined the committee in 1999, led the panel overseeing state and foreign-operations spending from the 112th through the 114th Congresses, and chaired the defense subcommittee in the 115th. In 2023 she rose to the full committee's chair, the first Republican woman to hold that position. It placed the former teacher and city official at the center of the House's annual decisions about federal funding.

Granger used that role to connect national spending decisions with the economy and infrastructure of North Texas. She championed defense funding tied to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, built in Fort Worth. CBS News Texas also credited her with helping secure more than $400 million for the city's Panther Island flood-control and development project. Her record moved between a global defense program and a flood-control plan rooted in the city where her public career began.

When Granger announced in 2023 that she would not seek another term, she said it was time for a new generation to take responsibility for representing the district. After her death, House Speaker Mike Johnson said she had "broke barriers for women in public service." Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker, who had worked with Granger and called her a mentor, summed up the city's loss in a CBS News Texas tribute: "What a lady, and the end of an era in political service."

Granger's public record remains visible in the offices she opened to women, the Fort Worth programs she led, the aircraft assembled in her district and the flood-control work she helped finance. Her route from teacher and business owner to mayor and congressional chair also widened the map of what a Texas woman could do in Republican politics, linking neighborhood government to one of Congress's most consequential committees.