Marion Myers; Teacher, Figure at Bowie State

Marion Tama Rieras Myers, 90, an elementary school teacher in New Orleans and Baltimore before retiring from teaching in Bowie, died Dec. 21 of complications of Alzheimer's disease in the nursing unit at Maplewood Park Place Senior Living Community in Bethesda.

She taught in New Orleans and Slidell, La., before teaching first and second grade at Cherry Hill Elementary School in Baltimore in the early 1950s and at High Bridge Elementary School in Bowie from 1967 to 1968.

Mrs. Myers retired in 1968 to assist her husband, who was president of what is now Bowie State University.

In 1967, when Bowie students closed the college during a protest, Mrs. Myers's rapport with them helped quell the tension and was a contributing factor in the students' embracing the president, her husband said. During the protest, she talked with students who came to their campus home, sometimes late at night, and made meals for them.

Mrs. Myers performed a similar supportive role to her husband during his 18 years as president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the Washington-based association of 117 historically black colleges and universities.

She met with heads of state on delegations of the International Association of University Presidents and with dignitaries such as Nelson Mandela as a member of a NAFEO delegation. On one trip to Madras, India, in 1980, she helped a family improve its economic and educational status.

Mrs. Myers was a native of New Orleans. Her parents were pioneers in the Knights of Peter Claver, the nation's largest historically black Catholic lay organization. Her father was a founding editor of the organization's national magazine and her mother was a charter member of its Ladies Auxiliary.

Mrs. Myers was an honor graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans, where she was a charter member of the Beta Phi chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and was on the varsity track team. She pursued graduate studies at the University of Maryland.

She was an avid contract bridge player and belonged to the Northwest Child Study Group in Baltimore, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and Sigma Phi fraternity.

Mrs. Myers was a staunch Catholic, her husband said. Wherever they went during their travels to more than 50 countries, she would insist on going to Mass, he said.

Survivors include her husband of 63 years, Samuel L. Myers Sr. of Bethesda; three children, Yvette Marion Myers of Durham, N.C., Tama Myers Clark, a Pennsylvania State Trial Court judge, of Philadelphia and Samuel L. Myers Jr. of Minnesota; and two granddaughters.