She was the first Kentucky woman to serve as President General of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), an honor conferred upon her November 13, 1919, at the national convention at Tampa, Florida.

She was at one time Regent of the Fort Jefferson Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and also served the Paducah Woman's Club as president for two terms.

[3] May's father, Dr. Alexander Allen Faris, lost an arm in the civil war, but nevertheless developed a very high degree of skill as a surgeon, and was one of the few men thus handicapped who achieved distinction in that branch of the profession in his era.

[1] McKinney's grandfather, Richard Alexander Faris, was a native of North Carolina and spent his active life as a planter in Mississippi County, Missouri.

[4] McKinney was educated by private tutors to the age of twelve, after which she attended Mrs. M. E. Clark's Select School for Young Ladies at Nashville, Tennessee,[1][3] graduating in 1892, and later taking two years of college work.

[4] An unusual side to her training was that obtained from close association with her father in the practice of his profession, when very frequently, in time of emergency, she assisted him with surgical operations.

[3] An interesting incident in her career as Recording Secretary-General happened at Washington, D.C. when McKinney locked up in a room some newspaper reporters until they agreed to omit from their stories of the convention certain remarks made on the floor by members, but that were not typical of the best in the UDC.

Roy McKinney's maternal grandfather, E. P. Weaks, was a prominent business man in Paducah, Kentucky where he died when about eighty years of age.