I went to the funeral this morning, and was quite surprised to find no other Bearcats there except Hugh Carr. He spoke, during the time given over for people to do so. He got lost in the crowd afterward so I didn't get the opportunity to visit with him.
Katherine was a real force in ERGON. She started as a clerk in its infancy and wound up, shall we say, a very powerful woman in the heirachyof a business that employs 4200 people.
I sat next to a man who had been the attorne for ERGON for many years. He said he finally got to where he considered her a friend, but never got over being scared of her!
One story I'll tell on her here is that when I left the full time vocational ministry and became bivocational, 25 or so years ago, I worked selling Cadillacs for a week. (Turned out, car sales was not my calling.) Anyway, the first day or so, I called her up and told her what I was doing and she said, "Robert, I appreciate it, but when I need a new car, I just call up Eric (or whatever his name was) at the Jaguar place and tell him to pick me out something nice and deliver it here to the office." I mean, how you gonna compete against THAT!?!?!?
My other story about her deals with a big multi-class reunion I put together at Roosevelt Park in Morton one year. I went out on a limb and engaged the big hall where we met and wound up with a pretty big liability. So, at the event, I asked everyone there to help out with a donation before they left. And our Bearcat class mates started putting in generous amounts of $5.00, maybe $10.00, but that was about it. Before she left Katherine gave me a check for $400.00, I believe it was. When the expenses were compared to the income that evening, I had about $5.00 left over. Her generosity bailed me out that evening for sure.