Barbara Selman
Barbara Matthews Selman was welcomed into Heaven on November 14, 2025. Barbara was born on June 22, 1945 in Mobile, AL and grew up in Northport, AL and was a member of Northport United Methodist Church. She was an exceptional student, All-State clarinet player and majorette at Tuscaloosa County High School. Her academic excellence continued at the University of Alabama where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics in 1967.
After graduation, Barbara embarked on a career as a computer scientist. Since computer science curriculums didn’t exist in the mid-1960s, Barbara taught herself Fortran, quickly consuming a stack of manuals placed on her desk at Lockheed Martin. Soon thereafter, she was working on computer simulations of the Saturn rocket booster and the Saturn fly by. In addition to Lockheed Martin, she was consistently a top performer at DuPont Company and Texas Instruments where she was once summoned by the president of the company so that he could meet the employee that had the most exemplary ratings in a personnel file he’d ever reviewed (and present her with a nonperiodic bonus). Barbara’s talents as a computer scientist were only eclipsed by her talents as a mother as she took a break from the workforce to raise her two children, Brian and Tracy. Barbara finished her career as a valuable member of the faculty at the University of Alabama where she taught undergraduate students BASIC computer language (after she taught herself, of course).
In addition to being a wonderful mother to her children, Barbara cared for many dogs and a handful of cats over the years. She loved her animals (and everyone else’s animals too). Barbara maintained a strong Christian faith throughout her life and looked forward to the day she would be reunited with her parents, Raiford and Julia Matthews and her sister, Catherine Matthews.
She is survived by her children, Brian Hydrick and Tracy (Rafe) Aiello, grandchildren Lexie Mae and Oscar Hydrick and Julia and Olivia Aiello and her canine companion, Baby. A celebration of Barbara’s life will be scheduled at a later date.