Tara Lee Profile

Has there ever been someone in your life that really influenced you? Maybe more than you realized at the time? Well for me, that person was Tara Lee. She really helped me grow as a person and, in some ways, prepared me for college.

She is 33 years old and a theater teacher at Sprague High School. Lee started out at George Fox as a pre-law pre-med major but switched to majoring in education after she realized that her true love was, and always had been for education. Lee started out as an elementary school teacher and then moved around from grade to grade.

One day she was counseling at a church camp when she got an unusual call for a job offer from the Salem-Kiezer school district to be the new high school theater teacher at Sprague. Lee asked, “are you sure? I’m just an elementary school teacher.” Even though she thought she would be unqualified, she went to the interview.

During the interview she was telling a story about one of her students and the principal started to cry because of the way Lee descirbed her connection with her students. As she left the interview office, she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to get the job. Once they called her back, she was a little skeptical but decided to take the job. “It was so weird and out of the ordinary I knew that I had to pay attention to it.”

Now that Lee is the theater director at Sprague she handles all of the productions. Her favorite thing about directing is the progression and growth and seeing all of it come together right in front of her.

In addition, she doesn’t like that she’s always flying solo. She doesn’t want to bring any parents into it because “they muddy the water.” The stress is also a problem when it comes to directing by yourself. Mainly because it’s all on you, if you mess up everyone looks at you. Also, It's hard to be so close to your students and not be able to have all of them in your show.

One of the things I enjoyed most about having Lee as a teacher, was the way she connected with her students. She’s really passionate about them and even though she’s never had kids, she feels like she’s had hundreds. “I’ve learned a lot from just watching and observing.”

One of her former students, Brent Duford, commented "I liked how she could be official, and disciplinary like a good teacher, but also be so very casual and conversational at the same time." While she's directing she actually gets on stage to help you understand what she's asking you to do.

Her teaching styles are very hands on and I believe that helps her connect with her students because they are shown what to do rather than just told. Another student of Lee's, Dani Potter, shared "she is so willing to help us. Like if we have a problem with anything, she is super helpful. from school to the future."

The next production the Lee is directing is Diviners and it is showing at Sprague High School November 12th - 14th and 19th – 21st at 7pm.