She was born Deborah Stevens and raised in Woodward as the oldest of three children. After graduating from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, she taught in Altus. She married historian Bob Blackburn and moved to Oklahoma City.
When city residents voted against more funding for police and firefighters, Blackburn believed it was because the broad ballot measure had too much other stuff packed in. She ran an initiative petition to use a sales tax to fund just those first responder services, which voters approved in 1988.
Blackburn was asked to run for the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1994 after Rep. Linda Larason decided to retire just weeks before the deadline to file for candidacy…