Shirley Tacheron

Shirley Colleen Smith was born in San Pedro, California on October 23, 1928. She and her family moved to Coos Bay, Oregon sometime before she entered Marshfield High School. After graduating from high school in 1946, she went to Oregon State College in part because doing so had become a family tradition since her parents and cousins’ attendance.

The first year that Shirley was at OSC was also the first year that World War II veterans were returning to the school, which meant that the campus population almost doubled in size. Tacheron stayed in Sackett Hall, but after marrying her husband, Robert (Bob) Tacheron, in 1949, the couple moved into a house off campus.

After college, the couple moved to San Diego, California and then to Camas, Washington. The mother of four children, Tacheron was a Campfire Girl leader for several years and a member of the St. Johns Presbyterian Church. She passed away on July 24, 2014.