Blue campaign pin with metal backing. In white print reads "Maria Pappas (D) for President Cook County Board" with a small logo on the bottom.

Maria Pappas is Treasurer of Cook County, Illinois, a post she has held since 1998. She was elected to a fifth four-year term in November of 2014.
Pappas has remade the Office of Treasurer for Cook County, the world’s 16th largest government, into a vibrant, service-oriented office that develops and uses the latest technological tools for greater efficiency and economy.
A lawyer with a degree in counseling psychology, her organizational and management skills have drawn the attention of foreign governments that have asked for her help with projects.

The granddaughter of Cretan immigrants, Pappas was born on June 7, 1949. She was raised in Warwood, West Virginia, a town of 2,000 near the coal-mining city of Wheeling. As a child, she studied the Greek language and music. She played the electronic pipe organ, directed the choir and traveled around the country with the all-state band as bass clarinetist. As a drum majorette, she won nine gold medals in baton-twirling competitions. Education is a life-long passion for Pappas. She earned a degree in Sociology from West Liberty State College, in West Liberty, West Virginia, in 1970, and a degree in Guidance and Counseling at West Virginia University in Morgantown in 1972. She earned a doctorate in Counseling and Psychology at Loyola University of Chicago in 1976, and a law degree at I.I.T. Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1982.

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