Tamra Wood is fighting to break the generational cycle of dependence on public assistance that marked her family even before she was born.

With support from the Oregon Department of Human Services, Wood is working toward a bachelor’s degree at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande after graduating with high honors from Blue Mountain Community College where she earned an Associate of Arts Oregon Transfer Degree last spring.

The 42-year-old was one of eight Baker County students awarded $2,000 OTEC scholarships this spring to help fund her educational goals.

Wood’s dream is to teach business management classes at BMCC or EOU and to help lead others to the better life that she’s working toward herself.

Peggy Hudson, director of BMCC’s Baker Center, takes pride in Wood’s accomplishments and speaks highly of her.

“I think she is going to be a really wonderful advocate for Baker County and higher education in Baker County,” Hudson says. “I see someone who education made a difference for. She’s a very intelligent person.”

Wood encourages others to seek the opportunities available in the community — including public assistance if necessary — to improve their lives.

“A lot of people get embarrassed,” she says. “But it’s a way to enable people to get better so they don’t have to be embarrassed their whole lives.”

Wood has overcome a childhood of abuse and neglect at the hands of her “drug-dealing mama” and a young adulthood marked by continued poverty, health problems and hopelessness.

“I learned to use food stamps when I was 12 years old,” Wood said, recalling how she’d take her two sisters with her to buy food.

Plagued by health problems that include heart disease, multiple sclerosis and fibromyalgia,Wood used a wheelchair to get around when she left Michigan, weighing more than 500 pounds. When she moved to Oregon several years ago she had been certified as disabled by her doctor.

“When I lived in Michigan, I was constantly surrounded by homeless people and hopelessness,” she says. “I realized that I was miserable. I had my needs met, but I was making no contribution — humans need to do that.”

Wood and her husband, Neil, moved to Baker City in 2003 and it’s a move she’s never regretted even though the job opportunity they’d hoped for didn’t work out.

“Oregon tries hard to put people first before programs,” she says, and it’s that caring touch of the people she’s met at DHS and in her college studies that she credits with helping her achieve academic success and a better life.

Her husband was the first person to believe in her, she says.

The second was Dianne Ellingson, her writing instructor at Blue Mountain Community College.

“Mrs. Ellingson showed me respect,” she said. “I didn’t have to hide who I was.”

But Ellingson takes little credit for Wood’s achievements.

“She is an amazing person,” Ellingson says. “She’s inspirational to students. She absolutely loves learning. It’s medicine to her.”

That medicine helped Wood continue her studies even after she was diagnosed and underwent treatment for cancer in 2007.

“What academics have done is to bring out that intelligent woman in her — I didn’t do it,” Ellingson says. “The world of Blue Mountain and the world of academics brought out this intelligent, fine person.”

But Wood recalls a day in Ellingson’s class when she had planned a PowerPoint presentation, but was stymied by equipment problems. She felt hopeless and helpless and was ready to give up.

“If she’d have let me quit I probably wouldn’t have gone back, but I did and I intend to get as many people as I can to do the same,” Wood says, remembering how Ellingson’s insistence that she somehow complete her presentation helped her accomplish her goals.

Just as President Obama encouraged his followers through his “Together We Can” slogan, Wood hopes to spread the same inspiration to the poor and needy in the community, the state, the nation and the world.

“We can start right here in Baker,” she says. “Baker has a spirit — people are listening to me and I can make a difference.”

In the past, her reliance on public assistance contributed to her sense of hopelessness, she says.

“You almost can’t breathe when you realize how helpless you are,” she says. “You aren’t functional — you aren’t human.

“Here they don’t treat you like that. They treat you like you can get better. They just didn’t have a slogan — we can.”

Already she has reached out to others in encouragement and support, both while studying at Blue Mountain and at Eastern.

She wants others to see that they can make the same kids of changes in their lives.

“No matter where you are, you’ve got a second chance every day you wake up,” she says. “Together we can — starting with Baker.”

Ellingson has watched as Wood has inspired others with her own success.

“For students who see her — they think, if she can do this, so can I,” Ellingson said. “It’s a wonderful thing for others.

“I’m happy for Tamra that no matter what else happened in her life, she has won the respect of being an educated woman,” she added.

Liz Burton, who directs Eastern’s Baker City Center, says Wood seeks out anyone who might need a little extra support and encouragement. 

“That’s just her own personal passion is to help other people do what she’s done,” Burton says. “I think she would help any student who asked her, but she’s been especially pro-active in seeking out first-generation college students, students with disabilities and students with no other support system.

“She’s a great tutor and a great personal motivator,” Burton said.

And she’s also a great promoter of Eastern, which Burton said Wood speaks affectionately of as “a small university, a rural university and a university of great character.”

Burton believes it was those attributes of the university that helped Wood achieve success at a time in her life when she was prepared to accept it. 

“I think that she stepped out into seeking more knowledge and more formal education and she was met and received,” Burton said. “And it’s not just about having access to community college courses and having enrolled at Eastern, but about approaching a new culture and having that culture respond to her and invite her in.

“I just hope that she has equal opportunity out there in the working world,” Burton added. “I hope that she connects with people who can recognize what a strong and capable person she is.”

Wood has little doubt that she has what it takes to succeed.

“I’m going to do a lot,” she says confidently. “I really am.”