Catherine Dorris Norrell was a United States. Representative from Arkansas, the wife of her predecessor in the House, William F. Norrell.
Education
Born in Camden in Ouachita County in southern Arkansas, to a Baptist minister, Franklin Dorris, and the former Rose Whitehead, Norrell attended high school in Monticello, Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
Career
She taught in the Arkansas public schools and served as director of the music department at Arkansas A & M College (now Arkansas State University) in Jonesboro. In the special election she defeated the Democratic lawyer and banker John Harris Jones (born 1922) of Pine Bluff, who said that if elected she would benefit from the congressional salary as well as a pension from her husband"s House service. Jones later switched to Republican affiliation and unsuccessfully opposed senatorial nominee Dale L. Bumpers in 1974.
Norrell served until January 3, 1963.
She was not a candidate for renomination in 1962, for the 6th District was abolished. After her term in Congress, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State from 1963 to 1965.
She was later director of the United States Department of State Reception Center in Honolulu from June 1, 1965, to January 5, 1969. She resided in Monticello, Arkansas, until her death in Warren in Bradley County.