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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
HONORING KATHLEEN ANNE HEWITT KASTILAHN FOR A LIFE WELL-LIVED
WHEREAS, Kathleen Anne Hewitt Kastilahn died on October 11, less than a month after her 76th birthday. Born in Chicago to Harley and Ruth Hewitt, she attended Lyons Township High School, where she was yearbook editor; and
WHEREAS, Kathy met William ("Bill") Kastilahn at Northwestern University, while majoring in journalism. Bill noted that both sets of parents dragged them to the University's Lutheran Center "so we'd know where it was." After crossing paths for more than a year, the two began a relationship that lasted through 58 years of marriage; and
WHEREAS, after Bill earned a master's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in California, the couple then settled into life in Evanston. Their son Will was born in 1975 and Danny in 1979; and
WHEREAS, Kathy began her writing career composing safety manuals for home appliances. Writing for such publications as North Shore Magazine and the Evanston Review, she became a well-known and respected local reporter; and
WHEREAS, in 1992, she began writing for The Lutheran magazine. She traveled internationally and wrote on the challenges and celebrations of developing countries. Assignments took her to such highly visible places as Hong Kong and Cannes, as well as countries where people struggled in relative obscurity with poverty and disease. And though she was writing on international issues, she supported local journalism by joining the advisory committee of Evanston RoundTable Media; and
WHEREAS, as an associate editor of The Lutheran, she was one of an international group of five who traveled in 2003 to poverty- and famine-worn Zimbabwe to report on Lutheran projects there. President Robert Mugabe, who was attempting to stifle journalism in his country, accused the group of working without proper visas and held them under house arrest for several days; and
WHEREAS, Kathy always bore witness to the dignity o...
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