ALUMNAE/I PROFILE
Selfless Mother Inspires a Legacy of Service
By Lisa DeGrace T
amara Selfridge Musser ’74 is passionate about many things: her job as a middle-school
math teacher for at-risk students, her family, and wearing haute couture fashion. Ask Tamara where her writing skills and commitment to community come from, and she will credit OES. Ask Tamara where her passion and drive come from, and she will unhesitatingly credit her mother, Roberta Angeline Hughes. Tamara was a “lifer” at Oregon Episcopal
School, beginning in the downtown campus of St. Helen’s Hall in first grade and eventually graduating in 1974 from Oregon Episcopal School. Tamara grew up in outer SE Portland (“First on the bus in the morning, last off the bus in the evening”) in a strong community-oriented neighborhood that was not culturally directed toward college. Tamara’s mom was the main bread-winner of the family, and she singlehandedly decided to do whatever it would take to ensure that Tamara would go to college. Though she almost certainly would have qualified for financial aid, Roberta never applied. Instead, she quietly worked two to three jobs at a time throughout Tamara’s schooling, ensuring that Tamara would have the tools for success. “My mom never bought anything for herself…
and she wouldn’t let me work to earn money,” Tamara said. “She said it was more important to study. She always wanted me to have more and better.” The passion for education at home was
mirrored and magnified at St. Helen’s Hall and OES. “I got an amazing education at OES. College was a breeze because of what I learned and did at OES.” But beyond the education, Tamara remembers the sense of community at the school: “I never went to a teacher that
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didn’t have time for me. The times that I needed help, I was helped. I have fond memories of the way I was treated and how I was allowed to grow up. It was a wonderful place to grow and learn. It is more than a private school; teachers and students nurture each other to become
better people.” Tamara’s education and upbringing have brought her to a career teaching
math to at-risk youth in a community north
of Seattle. Tamara remarks that her mother’s belief in her “enabled me to do a better job at what I do—working with kids from different backgrounds, kids with no hope. The part that was different for me was that I had my mom in my court. The kids I work with don’t always have that. My mom has inspired me to try and bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots. I believe that with hard work, anyone can get there.” Tamara’s students know that
they are lucky. In a recent Seattle Met article focusing on Tamara’s fashion, a student commented, “I have had the chance to experience the teaching of Tamara Musser. She is a fashion diva and a very cool teacher. She changes the life of every student that walks in the room.” Roberta Angeline Hughes died
in June 2007. Knowing Tamara’s love of OES and her great
admiration for her mother, Tamara’s husband and daughters established a scholarship endowment in her mother’s honor, presenting it to Tamara as a surprise at Christmas 2007. To date, three students have benefitted from the scholarship, which will continue in perpetuity. Like Tamara’s work in the classroom, the scholarship is a way to help students like Tamara succeed and thrive. Tamara ref lects, “I couldn’t ever repay my mom for what she did. The scholarship is a way for her self lessness and her commitment to education to live on.”
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At top, Roberta Angeline Hughes, mother of Tamara Selfridge Musser ’74, who is shown below in her senior picture from OES.
“My mother was the most selfless person I’ve ever met. I have two children, but I will never live up to what she did for me.”
“If the person who receives my mother’s scholarship has one-millionth of her strength, they’ll do great.”
—Tamara Musser, speaking about her mother Roberta Angeline Hughes
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