• Office Sought: Representative, Ohio (15)
• Birth Date: April 30, 1949
• Occupation: Attorney
• Web site: http://www.kilroyforcongress.com/2008/1/index.php

Education

• Cleveland State University, BS
• The Ohio State University, JD

Mary Jo Kilroy, 59, was born in Euclid, Ohio and currently lives in Clintonville, Ohio.

She grew up in Cleveland and worked her way through college at hospitals, as a waitress and as a counselor at her alma mater, Cleveland State University, where she received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1977. She received a law degree in 1980 and went into private practice.

Kilroy, a Democrat, won her first elective office in 1991 for Columbus School Board and was re-elected twice. In 1996, she failed to unseat state Sen. Eugene Watts. In 2000, Kilroy won an open seat on the Franklin County Board of Commissioners and was re-elected in 2004, when she and Paula Brooks formed the first Democratic majority on the board in more than a decade.

In 2006, Kilroy lost her attempt to take Ohio's 15th Congressional District seat away from incumbent Deborah Pryce by a little more than 1,000 votes.

She and her husband, Robert, have two children.