Tammy Kaye Miriani

Tammy loved learning so much she became a teacher. She cherished family so much she fully embraced being a mother and excelled at being a grandmother. She lived an adventurous life filled with travel and loved taking care of others, be they students, friends, family members or animals.

Tammy Kaye Tucker was born July 6, 1960 in Mesa, Arizona to J.B. and Imatene Hall Tucker, joining her sister Teresa (Tucker) Loar in a journey throughout the southwest before settling in Kansas City, Missouri, where Tammy graduated from Winnetonka High School. Her first job as a teenager was at Worlds of Fun. She worked for several doctors in the Northland and in Salt Lake City, Utah, where she and first husband Bill Gorman welcomed their first child, Samantha, who was born on Tammy’s birthday. Six years later the couple had a son, Kenneth. Tammy adored her son and was thrilled to be well enough to dance with him at his wedding to Hannah last year.

She loved learning and attended Southwest Missouri State University and the University of Utah before finishing her Bachelor’s degree and earning dual Masters Degrees in History and Education at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, where she met her second husband, History Professor Ron Mariani, who preceded her in death in 2020.

Tammy spent two decades as a special education teacher at Oak Park High School. On the Facebook page announcing her death, one student wrote of the profound impact Tammy had on her life after her own mother died and she didn’t know how to keep going. As Kenneth described his mom: “In the same way Patrick Mahomes works to chuck that ball into the end zone, Mom worked to chuck students over the goal line of graduation. She was the MVP in a lot of student lives.”

Her love of travel and animals was combined into family vacations with dozens of adventures to zoos all over the country. She introduced her children and now “The Twins”, her precious grandchildren Maci and Matthew to the joy of rescuing animals. That spirit of unconditional love and caring for others has been passed on to the next generation as her legacy.

Tammy (Tucker) Miriani is survived by her daughter, Samantha Price and husband Chris and their twins, Maci and Matthew; her son Kenneth Gorman and his wife Hannah; her sister Teresa (Tucker) Loar and nephew David Loar and niece Sara Loar and their families, all of the Northland in Kansas City, Missouri.

Friends are cordially invited to gather with the family from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm in the afternoon on Friday, November 19, 2021 at White Chapel Funeral Home. A Celebration of Life will begin at 2:00 pm. A graveside service will follow in White Chapel Cemetery, 6600 NE Antioch Road, Gladstone, MO 64119.