Collegiate Challenge honors class of 2019’s Katharine Campbell.
For two years, Katharine Campbell ’19 dedicated herself as a member of the St. Joe’s chapter of Collegiate Challenge. Known for her fun, bubbly personality and lack of concern for others’ perceptions about her, Campbell could brighten anyone’s mood, according to her friends.
Campbell passed away suddenly on Aug. 11, 2017, just weeks before beginning her junior year at St. Joe’s.
“Katharine lived her life really boldly. She could just always brighten someone’s day,” said Rose Walton ’19, Campbell’s first-year roommate and fellow Challenge member. “She loved to laugh, and she made a scene wherever she went.”
Seeking an opportunity to get involved on campus, the two roommates signed up for Collegiate Challenge together. The next year, Campbell and Walton convinced Nikki Kennedy ’19, another close friend, to join them.
“She was very loud, and she just really embraced her sense of humor,” Kennedy said. “She was always fun to be around. Just really a great all-around person, like she always knew what to say.”
When Campbell passed away, Jane Campbell, Katharine’s mother, requested that friends and family members donate to the St. Joe’s chapter of Collegiate Challenge in lieu of sending flowers or personal donations.
“After each trip, she stated that she had experienced the best week of her life. She was encouraged [through Collegiate Challenge] to get involved in other projects and service organizations such as Alpha Phi Omega and APEX,” Jane Campbell said in a written message to The Hawk. “She also talked about spending the year after graduation working for Habitat for Humanity.”
Suddenly in possession of a large sum of money, the organization had to figure out how it could best be used to commemorate the member they’d lost, said Colleen Emerson ’18, who had met Campbell through previous Collegiate Challenge trips.
Emerson, Erin Payton ’18 and their adult advisor, John Jeffery, eventually decided to create a scholarship in Katharine’s name which would provide two students with fully-funded Challenge trips and two others with partially-funded trips.
“I think it honors Katharine because she was very involved in service,” Kennedy said. “Her major was IHS, and she always wanted to do something to help people.”
The group wanted to offer the scholarship to participants who not only embodied Campbell’s spirit and personality, but also her passion for the program and for service in general, according to Emerson.
“We wanted to ensure that the recipients we choose are fully passionate and involved in something,” Emerson said.
The application for the scholarship, available both through the general Collegiate Challenge application and as its own separate file, closed on Feb. 1. Out of many applicants, 11 were chosen as finalists based on what they had written – once selected, these candidates underwent personal interviews with those in charge of the scholarship, namely, Emerson, Payton, Walton and Kennedy.
To get the best sense of the applicants’ personalities and how they related to Campbell, Payton and Emerson had reached out to Walton and Kennedy, as Katharine’s close friends, to help interview the 11 selected participants. Both Walton and Kennedy came up with questions that recalled moments of Campbell’s life and called upon the participant to reflect on similar moments in their own lives.
For instance, on one service trip, Campbell’s “fun fact” during an icebreaker was that she could eat two Chipotle burritos in one sitting, according to Kennedy, so the group nicknamed her “Burrito” for the remainder of the trip. In the interviews, Walton and Kennedy decided to tell applicants the story and ask them what their food nicknames would be.
Once six participants have been chosen, the new short list will be sent on to Campbell’s mother and brother, who will help decide the final four recipients of the scholarship along with Walton and Kennedy. Those students will be notified sometime either later this week or early next week, according to Walton.
“Our family is very touched to know that Katharine’s memory is being honored in such a wonderful way,” Jane Campbell said. “Katharine would be very pleased and humbled.”
