b. July 28, 1921

by Ellen Chesley Weig, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Hillsborough, 2015

Scott Evans Hughes is a Southern lady of great faith. She is an Episcopal Church woman who has devoted herself to addressing issues important to women and to making the world a better place for all of us. Scott’s methodology for change is simple: “I think that southern graciousness has really, really been important where I’ve been … if you speak in love and quiet tones … you can be someone with some authority and in a position of leadership.”

Born in her grandparent’s Weldon, North Carolina, home, Scott grew up in nearby Rocky Mount in a church-centered family and sang in the Junior Choir at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church. She and her twin sister, Virginia Owen Tyree, joined the Episcopal Church after college, influenced by their mother’s deep Methodist faith and their father’s Episcopal roots. World War II, the Great Depression, and her father’s illness brought the realities of the world very close for Scott and she responded with the sense of activism and compassion that has always been part of her life.

Scott became President of her parish ECW at a time when women’s roles were changing universally. As Diocesan ECW Vice-President (1972), Scott embraced tasks addressing these changing roles and began to support lay-leadership roles for churchwomen. As the first woman and layperson elected President of the Standing Committee in the Diocese of North Carolina, and the first woman President of Province IV, Scott herself became a significant role model for lay leadership.

Diocesan roles led to national ones. As Diocesan ECW President, Scott was a delegate to the 1976 ECW Triennial Meeting and witnessed General Convention’s vote for women’s ordination. Swept by the enormity of the gathering and the spiritual silence in anticipation of vote results, Scott returned home with new ideas on the changing roles of women. Participation in 1977 in national group discussions by women about women proved to be her “awakening.” Women were angry that ECW had not done enough. Understanding this as potentially destructive, Scott faced the concept of women as “tokens” and worked to change it.

Scott attended the 1979 General Convention as a Diocesan Deputy. She ran for the position of Provincial Lay Representative for the Triennial Committee, the forerunner to a national ECW, and won a leadership position “tantamount to being President of the National ECW.” New opportunities for leadership opened to Scott at the National Church level in legislative and mission fields too numerous to list in this By Word and Example, but culminating in service on the Nominating Committee for the Presiding Bishop elected in 1997. Scott’s thought has always been to “build community” and establish respect for one another.

At home, memories of experiencing the “holiness of creation” fortified Scott’s efforts with the Rev. Lex Matthews on environmental stewardship. She advocated for finding flexible scheduling for ECW meetings to support working women. Scott says, “I’m so blessed.” It’s the rest of us who have been blessed by her work.