MARGENE TOWER, BS ’61, MS
2003 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI OF THE YEAR

Margene Tower, a December 1961 graduate from OHSU School of Nursing, began her work in nursing as a public health nurse for the Marion County Health Department shortly after her graduation from OHSU School of Nursing. During her two year employment there, she provided school health services to 20 schools, as well as was responsible for infectious disease control, well-child clinic services, home care, mental health counseling, migrant health care and nursing home referrals. In 1964 she moved back to Portland and worked on a surgical floor at the old Multnomah Hospital where she was a charge nurse on the evening shift.

In 1965, Tower returned to school at the University of Colorado School of Nursing where she earned a Master of Science in Nursing (psychiatric/mental health) in 1967 and was honored with the award of outstanding student in psychiatric nursing. In addition to teaching and supervising students at the University of Colorado, Tower was also chairman of the mental health integration project at the school.

Following a year of teaching, Tower became the assistant director of nursing for psychiatry at Denver General Hospital. During her two and a half years in this position, she demonstrated leadership by funding psychiatric nursing positions at bachelor’s and master’s levels throughout the hospital system.

The positions Tower has held after graduation show a steady progression of greater responsibility and service to the communities in which she has lived and worked. However, it was her role as the area mental health consultant for the Indian Health Service based in Montana over the next 30 plus years that her service and leadership to an underserved and specialized community has left a lasting mark on psychiatric and mental health for Native Americans nationwide. Perhaps one of the clearest examples of Tower’s success in her position with the Indian Health Service are nine yearly awards between 1976 and 1989 for superior and outstanding performance on behalf of the Indian Health Service. In addition, in 1985 she received a prestigious national award by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Health Resource Services Administration for her outstanding and innovative work with the Indian Health Service.

Tower has demonstrated incredible success in addressing the many unmet needs of Native Americans requiring psychiatric and mental health care. In several situations she has written standards and developed models of care that became nationally recognized and have become “the standards for care.” Tower has worked with a multitude of agencies at the local, state and national level to develop needed programs and services. Her accomplishments in this specialized area of nursing are phenomenal and are the reason she was nominated and chosen to receive this most prestigious award. Because Tower’s work has national recognition, it has touched Oregon-based Native Americans as well as those throughout the country. Margene Tower is a credit to OHSU School of Nursing and to the nursing profession.

Last updated June 7, 2006 by OHSU School of Nursing Web Managers.
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