Kay graduated from Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1959. She has been a homemaker and mother, as well as an employee in various offices and in management positions. For more than six years prior to being elected to the legislature, she was the office manager and full charge accountant for a nationwide general contracting and construction company.

First elected to the Kansas House of Representatives in 1992, Kay has served on Government Organization & Elections, Health & Welfare, Education, and Appropriations committees in the House and on the Joint Legislative Educational Planning Committee. She was a 1991 participant in the Fundamentals of Catholicism seminar at Notre Dame University and completed the Kansas University Economics Institute for Kansas Leaders at the Robert J. Dole Institute for Public Service and Public Policy in 1999.

Senator O’Connor was the 2001 recipient of the Kansas Republican Assembly’s Courageous Conservative Award. She served on Senate committees as Vice Chair of Elections and Local Government, member of Judicial, Federal and State Affairs, and Joint Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice. She was also Chair of the Children's Issues Committee.

In the summer of 2006, Kay ran for Secretary of State and lost in the primary. In October of 2006, Kay announced her resignation from the Kansas Senate, after 14 years of service in the legislature. Her endorsed replacement, Julia Lynn, was elected on November 9, and will serve the remainder of the term.

Kay is the past director of St. Philippine Duchesne Choir at Blessed Sacrament Parish, which hosts the "Kansas City Latin Mass Community." She serves as Executive Director of Parents In Control (PIC), a national non-profit organization promoting parental control of educational decisions for children.