Martha S. Pope

Martha S. Pope is an American public servant who participated in harmony initiatives in Northern Ireland that lead to the fine Friday Agreement in 1998. She then served as the sergeant at arms of the United States Senate from 1991 to 1994, the first girl to maintain the role. She briefly served as Secretary of the United States Senate for a few months in 1994 before she was asked to urge on in the Northern Ireland harmony process. Pope is the without help person in the records of the U.S. Senate to preserve both the important Secretary and Sergeant of Arms positions. She was furthermore Chief of Staff to Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell. She is in addition to a pastel artist.

Pope was born in New Castle, Pennsylvania but grew occurring in Connecticut. She received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Connecticut in 1967, where she majored in sociology and anthropology and minored in art in the past earning a master’s degree in art education at Southern Connecticut State University.

After teaching art for five years in elementary and junior tall school, Pope moved to Washington, D.C., to play for Senator Gary Hart from 1975 to 1977. In 1977, Pope left Capitol Hill to feat for the National Wildlife Federation, only to compensation to the Hill in 1979 to enactment for Senator John Culver. When Culver at a loose end his bid for reelection in 1980, Senator George J. Mitchell kept her on at the Environment and Public Works Committee staff previously hiring her first as his administrative accomplice in 1985 and the chief of staff in 1989 like he became majority leader. In 1989, the second edition of the The Almanac of the Unelected characterize her as "glue - she makes things work."

In 1991, Mitchell had Pope appointed Sergeant at Arms to replace the retiring Henry K. Giugni. While serving as Sergeant at Arms, Pope updated the Senate's old dress code in 1993 to permit women to wears pants upon the Senate floor to make the Senate dress code rules more inline like current rules used the issue world, in disclose legislatures, and in the House of Representatives. After Walter J. Stewart announced his retirement as Secretary to the Senate in 1994, Mitchell had made arrangements thus that Pope would succeed Stewart as Secretary prior to Mitchell's own planned retirement from the Senate.

In January 1995, Pope left her job at the Senate to encourage her former boss, the newly appointed United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland and former Senator Mitchell, as Senior Advisor for the Northern Ireland Peace Negotiations until July 1998, after the peace succession went in effect.

In confession of "her outstanding contribution to harmony talks, which led to the fine Friday Agreement", Pope was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws (LLD) from Ulster University upon July 4, 2019.

In 2001, Pope became a fanatic of the Hofstra University board of trustees.