October 2024 ~
It’s possible. It’s a big world, so chances are it’s even likely there’s someone wandering around in it with the initials TNT who’s a low-energy, low-achieving, shrinking violet type. But this much is certain – it ain’t Taryn Nichole Tarver (Benson, 1993).
Inducted into the PIL Hall of Fame in 2023, Taryn’s high school track accomplishments include PIL championships in the 100 and 200 meters, long jump and 4x100 meters and a state championship in the 100. But those represent just the proverbial tip of the Taryn iceberg. Because since those days, she has compiled a long list of other achievements that is summed up succinctly, but still only partially, on the website of one of several entities she has founded and leads, TNT Global Ministries:
“Dr. Taryn N. Tarver-Bishop is a multifaceted woman who wears many hats,” her bio reads. “She is a dynamic mother, a model, an author, a mentor, a weight-loss consultant, a motivational speaker, and a celebrity life coach. But the one above all is a modern-day Prophetess.”
Comprehensive as that description may be, there is, of course, plenty more to Taryn’s story. A good place to start is that race back in high school when she was settling into her starting blocks and heard the comment that would serve as motivation for her not just on the track but for the rest of her life.
“My father had written Taryn on one side of my blocks and Tarver on the other and then TNT,” she recalls. “As we’re lining up for the race, the girl next to me looks at them and says, ‘Isn’t that just a bit arrogant?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She says, ‘Writing TNT on your blocks.’ I told her those were my initials, and she looked embarrassed. But right then it felt like God was telling me, ‘No matter what happens in your life, you’re going to be powerful’. That was the day I settled into being explosive in everything that I would endeavor to accomplish.”
When it came to running, and athletics in general, genetics blessed Taryn with a good head start. Her father, John, was an NFL running back playing for the New England Patriots when Taryn was born. Her grandfather, Philip Walden, was a well-known Portland educator and coach who started Albina Roadrunner Track and the Albina Sports Program Basketball to help youth achieve their goals in school and work.
“He was instrumental in me initially running track,” Taryn says.
In addition to Taryn, John and Jeanne Tarver had five sons, all of whom excelled in athletics. Shon played basketball at UCLA and in the Continental Basketball Association. Seth and Josh both starred in hoops at Jesuit and played at Oregon State. Zach played football for the Beavers. Taryn’s cousin is legendary UO Duck and former Kansas Chief, DeAnthony Thomas. Her son, Aaron Thompson, was a 2022 Oregon Golden Gloves champion, and her daughters, Tiara and Taryn Monique, were both athletes.
There’s more, but you get the picture. “Everyone in our family is athletic,” says Taryn, who by age 7 was already running track -- and playing volleyball and ice skating and “doing backflips.” Oh, and modeling for Nike catalogs.
She spent her earliest years in New Jersey (though she was born in Portland), while her dad was in the NFL, then lived in California until moving to Portland her sophomore year and enrolling at Benson, where she could benefit from the coaching of legends like PIL Hall of Famer Leon McKenzie and John Mays.
In California, Taryn had honed her skills by running against high-caliber competition, including future Olympic and world champion Marion Jones. So she was primed for success once she came under the tutelage of McKenzie and Mays.
“The Benson coaches would often run us against college kids, so our teams would always do well,” Taryn recalls. “But they were also all about getting you into college and advancing into the next phase in your life. That time was an incredible experience in my life.”
Despite her success in track, Taryn admits her path to the next phase of her life wasn’t a smooth one.
“I was a troubled teen,” she says. “I moved out of my parents’ house when I was 16 and was staying with another family and paying rent and soon wondering, what have I done? No one expected me to succeed.”
By the time she was 18, Taryn was married and had a child, and by age 22, she was the mother of three (she now has three stepchildren as well). It was also during that timeframe, however, that she committed herself to powering through whatever obstacle she faced and reaching the “next phase” she was envisioning.
After Benson, Taryn had enrolled and competed at Lane Community College, earning an associate’s degree before moving on to the University of Oregon. There, she performed well not just on the track (returning to competition, at one point, just five weeks after giving birth to her son), but also in the classroom and extracurricular activities.
“Now I had three kids, but I still ran track and had the second fastest 100-meter time on the team,” Taryn says. “I also ran the Black Student Union, was a student body senator and was involved in church and community things. I was kind of busy.”
No doubt, considering she also was a member of the Friars Senior Honor Society, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, a member of Toastmasters and, it bears repeating, a mother of three.
Taryn wound up earning several honors from the UO, including a prestigious leadership award from the Journalism School, where she earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
And still, there’s more. she also competed for and won the title of Mrs. Eugene on her way to being named Mrs. Oregon International 2000. This while also working in TV ad sales, teaching production and media courses at UO and starting her first business, a salon.
While in grad school, Taryn was recruited by Gallo Wine and moved with her children to Los Alamitos, Calif., where she worked in sales for two years before becoming a pharmaceutical representative.
Through the years, Taryn had always been involved in church activities. “Everywhere I went, I wound up doing ministry,” she says. “I just wanted to serve and help others.”
That motivation, she says, came in part from wanting to share with others her own experience facing obstacles but not letting them discourage the pursuit of her goals and dreams.
“The year I was Mrs. Oregon was actually the worst year of life,” Taryn relates. “I had three kids, and their dad and I were divorcing. I felt humiliated and sad but I decided I couldn’t go anywhere but up. Then, in 2001, I got a call from someone who didn’t really know me, but they gave me a prophecy. That was the day my life shifted. I said, ‘I think you’ve got the wrong person.’ But, sure enough, everything that was prophesized came true.”
In the years since that day, Taryn has advanced through a diverse set of the “next phases” her Benson coaches originally pushed her toward. In the process, she says she raised her children in a stable environment while starting several businesses in the beauty industry, authoring seven books, starting a record label, running a publishing company, founding Lifeline TNT Global Ministries, which includes a church, school and other entities and traveling the world ministering to others.
People also travel from all over the world to Spirit Life Church LA, which Taryn, who holds an honorary Doctor of Theology degree, co-pastors with her husband Dr. Paul Bishop, “to experience miraculous healing,” she says. Taryn explains her gift as a prophetess as “not like a psychic. This is not something I charge money for, but I see things. I predict things. People come to me in need. I’m often able to see something there, we pray and miraculously God does the rest; it works out for them in many cases. I wish I could explain it, but we give people hope, and it’s amazing to be able to operate at that level of gifting.”
Amazing, perhaps, but not unexpected from someone with the power and force of TNT.
For more information about Dr. Taryn Tarver Bishop and her ministry, visit
Spiritlifechurchla.org
Lifelinetnt.org
~ Profile written by Dick Baltus (Wilson, 1973)
CyberMuseum bio: