Portal:Oregon/Selected biography/6

Betty Cantrell Roberts (1923–2011) was a politician and judge in the U.S. state of Oregon. She was the 83rd Associate Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, the highest state court in Oregon. She was the first woman on the Oregon Supreme Court, and had also been the first woman on the Oregon Court of Appeals. Roberts served from 1982 to 1986 on the high court and from 1977 to 1982 on the Court of Appeals. Roberts was born in Texas in 1923, growing-up in that state during the Great Depression of the 1930s. After attending Texas Wesleyan College for one year starting in 1941, she married and left school, eventually moving to Oregon. In 1958, Roberts earned a bachelor of science degree from Portland State University, followed by a masters degree at the University of Oregon, and in 1966, a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School. In 1964, Roberts the Democrat won election to the Oregon House of Representatives, serving until 1968 when she was elected to the Oregon Senate. During the 1975 legislature, Betty served in the Senate where both her step-daughter Mary Wendy Roberts and then-husband Frank L. Roberts also served. She was married three times, including to Frank and later to Keith Skelton, whom she would also serve with in the Oregon Legislature. Roberts lost her bid to become Oregon's governor in 1974, losing in the primary election, and then lost a campaign to become a United States Senator in the fall election. Then in 1977, Oregon Governor Robert W. Straub appointed Betty Roberts as the first woman to the Oregon Court of Appeals. In 1982, Governor Victor G. Atiyeh appointed her as the first woman to the Oregon Supreme Court where she served until 1986. She was a private mediator and senior judge until her death due to pulmonary fibrosis.