Jessie Thatcher Bost

Jessie Olive Thatcher Bost (December 16, 1875 – February 2, 1963) was the first female graduate of Oklahoma State University.

Bost was born in Guthrie Center, Iowa. Her family moved to Stillwater in 1891, then part of Oklahoma Territory, and she enrolled in a university, then known as Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical (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 case of typhoid fever had prevented her from graduating with the first class in 1896.) Marriage and family Jessie married Henry A. Bost, a fellow student, on July 16, 1902. They continued to live in Stillwater until 1907. Meanwhile, the couple had four children and moved to Alva in 1908. As soon as she settled in Alva, she organized a Parent-Teachers Association (PTA) and was elected chairman of the Northwest PTA.