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.
“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.”
Five years later, and it’s still painful to put her in past tense like that, Dixon said.
Katy could and would help anyone, her grandmother said – but sadly, she couldn’t help herself.
She was hurting, silently, and on Jan. 24, 2021, ended her life by 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 5K run at Fairmont State University that raises money for causes a lost kid held dear while also addressing suicide prevention.
Katy had graduated a year early from high school and was a 4.0 student in forensic science at Fairmont State. There was that, plus her extensive volunteer work at the Marion County Humane Society and other outreach endeavors in the area.
Meanwhile, the 2026 edition of “Kickin’ it for Katy’ is from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. April 25, on the FSU campus, Dixon said.
In addition to the race and walk, the day includes a scavenger hunt, cornhole tournament and a craft vendor market, the organizer and grandmother said.
Visit www.kickinitforkaty.com for registration info and other particulars on the day. You’ll also learn about the scholarships the nonprofit group is in the process of awarding for students entering the mental health field.
“Of course, we 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, her grandmother said, could be earnest and goofy – oftentimes in the same instant.
Get her behind the wheel of a Go-Kart, or in the backyard romping with her beloved pitbull puppy Draco, and you had comedic gold, Dixon said.
She can only smile and marvel, she said, when someone she doesn’t know – but knew Katy – comes up to say hello and share a memory.
“Everybody loved her,” Dixon said.
“I know you hear that all the time,” she continued.
“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.”
