Katherine “Kitty” Houghton, trustee and graduate of the White Mountain School in Bethlehem NH, was stabbed in a Littleton NH hotel in what appeared to be a random act of violence on January 29th. From Bob Hookway in the Union Leader:
Houghton, 70, a multi-lingual veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, left a strong impression on people from all points on the globe.
News of the tragedy spread quickly throughout the White Mountain School community. Houghton was a 1960 graduate, when it was St.-Mary’s-in-the-Mountains, and was a trustee at the private Bethlehem school when she died.
But the reaction became much more widespread and intense when her obituary appeared in the New York Times, and people from several continents began sending their expressions of shock and sorrow, according to Rob Constantine, the school’s director of advancement.
“She was just connected to so many organizations – the Peace Corps, Foreign Service, the Ninety Nines – and so many people,” he said.
Also pouring in are checks that will go toward the building of a campus arts center that her fellow trustees have already decided to name for Houghton.
In fact, Constantine said, school officials believe donations will cover the entire cost of the project, as much as $1.5 million, that could be completed by the end of this year.
….
Constantine said that almost from the moment the campus was stunned by word of Houghton’s death, administrators, staff and students have been determined to focus on something positive, rather than the grim circumstances of her final moments.
Houghton, whose home was in the San Francisco area, had returned in January to New Hampshire’s North Country to attend what turned out to be her final trustees meeting. There, she enthusiastically voted in support of the proposed new campus arts center.
Within hours of her death, the other trustees decided on its name: Catherine Houghton Arts Center.