FAIRMONT – Kaitlynn Jade “Katy” Newbraugh, by the accounting of all who knew her, was a top-achieving kid who liked to watch out for her family, her neighbors and the place she called home.
She graduated a year early from high school and was carrying an A average at Fairmont State University, where she studied forensic science.
That was on top of her volunteer work for community causes, from the Marion County Humane Society in Fairmont to rural Alabama, where once went on a disaster relief trip to help tornado-ravaged towns with their cleanup details.
“Katy was just this life-force,” her grandmother Gina Dixon said. “Sometimes, I can’t explain it. She did more living in her 17 years than most people do their entire lives.”
Four years later, and it’s still painful to put it in past tense like that, Dixon said.
Katie could and would help anyone, her grandmother said – but sadly, she couldn’t help herself.
She was hurting, silently. On Jan. 24, 2021, she committed suicide.
Dixon didn’t want tragedy to define Katy.
So she started putting one foot in front of the other.
The grandmother steeled her grief and helped organize “Kickin’ it for Katy,” an annual 5-K run that raises money for those causes a lost kid held dear while also addressing suicide prevention.
“And we’re really proud of the scholarships,” she said.
That’s because “Kickin’ it Katy” isn’t just a race. It’s also a nonprofit, ready to award three scholarships, each in the amount of $1,500, for someone entering the mental health field.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a high school senior getting ready to graduate or a nurse going back to school for a master’s in psychology,” Dixon said.
Applications are accepted online through Feb. 13. Visit www.kickinitforkaty.com for full details.
“Of course, you never want to see a family go through what we did,” Dixon said.
In 2021, the year of Katy’s death, however – a lot of families did.
Katy was among the 48,183 people that year who died by suicide, according to numbers culled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That came to one death, by a person’s own hand, every 11 minutes, the CDC said.
Further, the organization noted, 1.7 million people – that’s the entire population of West Virginia – attempted suicide that year.
With the people that are left, the family and friends, Dixon said, there’s always a crushing core of sadness over a life unrealized.
That’s why she makes herself focus on the light opposed to the dark.
Katy, she said, could be earnestly serious and gloriously goofy – oftentimes in the same sentence.
Get her behind the wheel of a Go-Kart, or in the backyard romping with her goofy pitbull puppy Draco, and you had comedic gold, Dixon said.
And these days, she can only smile and shake her head when someone she doesn’t know – but knew Katy – comes up to say hello and share a memory.
“Everybody loved her,” Dixon marveled.
“I know you hear that all the time, but with Katy, it really was true. We can’t bring my granddaughter back – but we can work to save everyone else’s granddaughter. That’s what we’re gonna keep doing.”
