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County boundary material · St. Joseph County, Indiana
Documented. Beverly D. (Munger) Crone carries two county firsts on the City of South Bend's own record: leaving the South Bend Common Council (first sought office 1979, council member-at-large, re-elected 1983), she filled a vacancy as the first woman to serve as St. Joseph County Auditor — elected to two terms, ten years in the office — and then, with Cindy Bodle, was among the first women to serve as a St. Joseph County Commissioner, two terms, including service as the first woman Commissioner President. She ran in thirteen elections and won all thirteen; she died December 31, 2017; the Council's resolution (Bill 18-01, January 2018) is the carrier. On the bench: Stephanie Steele, appointed by Governor Holcomb in April 2021 and sworn April 30, 2021, is the first African American woman on the St. Joseph Superior Court. At the bar, for the pattern's depth: Elizabeth Fletcher Allen (1938) was the county's first African American woman lawyer, and Maxine E. Ryer Miller (1922) its first woman lawyer. Not documented. A targeted sweep for the first African American sheriff, prosecutor, commissioner, or judge of this county returned no county-specific first in any source reached; the first woman or first Black holder of the clerk's, treasurer's, recorder's, surveyor's, coroner's, and assessor's offices is likewise untested in the open record. No first is asserted for any of those offices. Group firsts print only where a carrier names them, as Crone's and Steele's carriers do.
Named gap: firsts for sheriff, prosecutor, clerk, treasurer, recorder, surveyor, coroner, and assessor, and any first Black commissioner or auditor — settler: county officer records, office by office, read with the press of record.
Sources: South Bend Common Council resolution, Bill 18-01 (January 2018), docs.southbendin.gov; South Bend Tribune and governor's appointment record for Judge Stephanie Steele (April 2021); first-women-lawyers record for Allen (1938) and Miller (1922); targeted sweep, November 11, 2026 (negative for the offices listed).