Kathryn Jane Benson died Thursday, July 25, 2024 with her parents at her bedside. She was 37 years old.
Kathryn was born August 27, 1986 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Parents are Nina Maxine Nelson Benson and William Alan Benson. Maternal grandparents are Robert Irving Nelson and Anna Jane Root Nelson of Tulsa. Paternal grandparents are William Wallace Benson and Dorothy Jean Zimmerman Benson of Edwardsville, Illinois.
Kathryn grew up in Tulsa and Jenks, Oklahoma. She started at Holland Hall School at age 4 and graduated in 2005 as valedictorian of her class. She was a National Merit Finalist, elected to the Cum Laude Society, and recipient of the Senior Faculty Scholar Award for English and Foreign Languages-Spanish. At Holland Hall Kathryn played basketball, softball, and volleyball. She played the cello in the school orchestra, performed in plays and musicals, and was a member of the dance troupe. She wrote for the Tulsa World Satellite section, Tulsa People, and Urban Tulsa Weekly.
Kathryn was a multiple award winner of the annual Tulsa City-County Library Young Peoples Creative Writing Contest winning 3 years for poetry.
Kathryn traveled to all lower 48 states including Kathryn, North Dakota (population 66). She hiked more than 150 National Park Service sites and earned her Junior Ranger Badge in more than 40 national Parks. Kathryn summited Mt. Le Conte in Great Smokey Mountains National Park four months before she was born. She summitted Mt. Washburn in Yellowstone National Park twice. She hiked the trails of Rocky Mountain National Park every summer beginning in a backpack carrier. She had a collection of custom-made hiking dresses created by her grandmother Dorothy Benson to make hiking more stylish.
Kathryn attended the University of Tulsa for one year as a Presidential Scholar and resided in the Honors House. She transferred to Grinnell (Iowa) College where she graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa National Academic Honor Society. She resided in London, UK for a semester where she studied the literature of England and Ireland. Kathryn played the cello in both the University of Tulsa and Grinnell College orchestras.
She moved to Austin, Texas for graduate school at the University of Texas School of Information where she graduated with a Master of Science in Information Studies. While in Austin she worked at the University of Texas Perry-Castaneda Library as a reference librarian and at the Austin Public Libraries main branch in downtown Austin.
After graduation Kathryn moved back to Tulsa and worked for the Pryor (Oklahoma) Public Library as a children's librarian. She worked for the Tulsa Community College Library System at the downtown and northeast campuses as a reference and instructional librarian where she developed and taught courses in library research and information literacy. She joined the faculty of the TCC English Department and taught courses in college readiness and rhetoric and composition. Kathryn was a member of the American Library Association.
Kathryn earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpellier, Vermont. She also earned a Masters Certificate in Instructional Design from the University of Illinois-Champaign.

At the time of her passing she worked for EdClub (Wash. DC), an educational software development firm, where she researched and designed internet-based K-12 curriculum and wrote curriculum content material. Kathryn was also the co-creator and producer of the podcast Truer Words, a podcast the explores the work of making art.
Kathryn's young adult novel will be published in the coming months.
Kathryn lived in a mid-town Tulsa bungalow with her coonhound Pippi. She had a lifelong passion for reading and writing. Her personal library of several thousand books was carefully acquired, curated, and organized. She designed and sewed many of her own clothes. She was also a woodworker creating and building furniture for her home. Her latest project was building a wall of built-in bookcases in her home office. She also recently developed an interest in watercolor landscape painting and had been filling sketchbooks with new paintings.
Wherever Kathryn went, whatever she did, she made close and lasting friendships. Her friends today reside on all continents. She enjoyed nothing more than jumping on an airplane to visit friends--her home in Tulsa was always open for visiting friends.
To we, her parents, Kathryn was the center of the Universe. From the first radiant spark of birth our expectations of her were fulfilled and we soon knew that living up to her expectations of us was the true mission of parenthood. It is often said when parents die they will live on in their children; we can not say Kathryn WAS this or WAS that because in us, her friends, and everyone she knew and loved, she IS.
Kathryn was preceded in passing by grandparents Robert and Anna Nelson, and Willian Benson, Great-grandmother Coleta "GG" Mindrup Zimmerman of Edwardsville. And beloved uncle Jay Owen Nelson of Tulsa.
Kathryn is still loved here by parents Nina and Alan Benson, aunt Christine Nelson of Tulsa, aunt and uncle Kimberly and James Benson of Cheyenne, Wyoming, cousins Stephen Benson and Mark Benson, and grandmother Dorothy Benson of Edwardsville, Illinois. And by her vigilant and shy coonhound Pippi, and her friendly and energetic rat terrier Daisy.
A memorial service will be 11am, Saturday, August 10, 2024 at Moore Funeral Home Southlawn Chapel, 9350 East 51st. Tulsa. Private interment in Tulsa Memorial Park Cemetery,
In lieu of flowers, family and friends are contributing in Kathryn's memory to Emily's List and the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation.