GAUSE, Texas (KRHD) — A 102-year-old Gause woman is heading to the polls Tuesday to vote on Election Day.
- Mary Alma Gray has never missed an election and has cast her vote in the 2024 presidential election.
- She first voted for former president Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
- She says her father, D.S. Smith, the first black principal in Gause, taught her the importance of voting.
- Her family says her efforts should inspire people, especially young people, to vote.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Mary Alma Gray, AKA Ms. Am, has never missed an election, and she's not planning on missing the 2024 presidential election.
"How old are you, Ms. Am?" 15ABC asked.
"1-0-2. A hundred and two," Gray said.
Born and raised in Gause, her father always taught her the importance of voting.
"I want to vote for her because she's a woman and black," Gray said.
"Her father was the first black principal and the only principal in the little town of Gause, Texas," her niece, said Gwendolyn Holloway.
"He told me, you know, that I had the privilege to vote," Gray said.
Especially after the Civil Rights Movement helped African Americans gain that freedom.
But it didn't come without challenges.
"But she would say, 'Don't you remember Papa said we got to pay our poll taxes?' and I didn't understand that. But now I understand, you know, they had to pay taxes to vote. If they didn't pay their taxes, they could not vote," Holloway said.
Now, her efforts to get to the polls have inspired her community.
"When people see that a lady 102 years old is trying to get to the polls to vote. Just her actions right now should inspire those who give excuses for not wanting to vote, which should inspire," Agnes Gray, her daughter-in-law, said.
"What lesson do you want to teach young people about voting?" 15ABC asked.
"To vote, because if they have the privilege to vote, vote," Mary Alma Gray said.
"How do you feel now that you voted?" 15ABC asked.
"Good," she said.
