Betty Roberts

Betty Cantrell Roberts (February 5, 1923 – June 25, 2011) was an American politician and judge from the U.S. state of Oregon.

Betty Cantrell was born in Arkansas City, Kansas, on February 5, 1923.

When she was six, her father became partially paralyzed and the family moved to Texas to be near her mother's family.

In Texas, Roberts was raised poor during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

She graduated from high school and then attended Texas Wesleyan College in Ft. Worth for one year starting in 1940.

In 1942 during WWII she married John Willard (Bill) Rice, a young soldier from Oregon who was stationed at Sheppard Field.

After the war they moved to Oregon, where Bill was a banker, with the family living in Klamath Falls, Lakeview, Gresham, and La Grande.

By the 1950s Roberts was the mother of four children, Dian, John Jr., Jo, and Randy.

Roberts enrolled at Eastern Oregon College in La Grande for a single year in 1955.

After the family moved to Portland, she enrolled at Portland State College where she graduated in 1958 with a bachelor of science degree in education.

From 1958 to 1967, Roberts taught high school in the Portland metropolitan area at Reynolds High School, Centennial High School, and David Douglas High School before moving on to teach business law and political science at Mt. Hood Community College from 1967 to 1976.

She and Bill Rice divorced in 1959.

She became a member of the Lynch Elementary School District school board, serving from 1960 to 1966.

She married Frank L. Roberts in 1960, adopting his name and retaining it after their divorce in 1965.

Roberts went on to earn a master's degree in political science from the University of Oregon in 1962.

Elected in 1964 to the Oregon House as a Democrat from Multnomah County, Roberts won re-election in 1966.

She then attended Northwestern School of Law (now Lewis & Clark Law School) in Portland, where she graduated in 1966 with her Juris Doctor.

She earned her degree while attending evening classes at the school, much like she earned her early degrees.

During this time she was still teaching high school and successfully ran for a seat in Oregon's House of Representatives.

In 1968, she won election to the Oregon Senate representing Multnomah County in District 12, and was the only woman in the Oregon Senate at that time.

That same year she married fellow legislator Keith D. Skelton, but retained the Roberts surname.

However, the Oregon State Bar, The Oregonian newspaper, and the state elections division refused to abide by her decision.

She threatened legal action, and eventually was no longer referred to as Mrs. Betty Skelton.

During this time Roberts also served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1968, 1972, and 1976, while also practicing law at the firm Skelton & Roberts from 1967 to 1977.

While in the Senate she was a cosponsor of the Oregon Bottle Bill that passed in 1971, the first of its kind in the nation.

In 1972, Roberts was re-elected to the Senate for another four-year term.

A native of Kansas and raised in Texas, Roberts had previously been elected to both chambers of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, but lost bids for the governor's office and the United States Senate, both in 1974.

She was married three times, including to Frank L. Roberts and Keith Skelton, both of whom she would serve with in the Oregon Legislative Assembly.

She was a private mediator and senior judge until her death due to pulmonary fibrosis.

In 1974, Roberts ran for governor of Oregon (the fifth woman to do so), but lost in the Democratic primary to Robert W. Straub.

Later that year, following the death of Democratic nominee Wayne Morse, she was picked by the Democratic Party to run on the November ballot for the United States Senate, an unsuccessful bid against incumbent Bob Packwood.

In 1975, she was named the Education Citizen of the Year Award by the Oregon Education Association and the Woman of the Year by the Oregon Women's Political Caucus.

The next year the Oregon Conference of Seventh Day Adventists gave her their Liberty Award.

She chaired Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in Oregon in 1976.

On September 1, 1977, Governor Robert W. Straub, a former opponent, appointed Roberts to the Oregon Court of Appeals to a new position, along with W. Michael Gillette, George M. Joseph, and John Buttler, when the court expanded from six to ten positions.

Roberts was the first woman on that court, as well as the first on any appellate court in Oregon.

The next year, she was up for election to retain her seat on the court, and won the election to a full six-year term.

Roberts served from 1982 to 1986 on the high court and from 1977 to 1982 on the Court of Appeals.

She was the 83rd justice of the Oregon Supreme Court.

She was the first woman to serve on the Oregon Supreme Court, and had also been the first woman on the Oregon Court of Appeals.