Kathi Goertzen honored with Pullman building dedication

PULLMAN, WA – The legacy of Kathi Goertzen will forever be memorialized with the formal renaming of the newest building of The Edward R. Murrow College of Communication on the Washington State University campus. During a special ceremony, friends and family came to unveil the newly named Goertzen Communication Addition, dedicated as a fitting tribute to one of the college’s most beloved alumna.
“We believe naming this building the Kathi Goertzen Communication Addition is a fitting recognition, a way that her legacy can live on, not just inside this building, but really in the hearts and minds of all those people whose lives she touched, and those who will also be inspired by her story, her grace, and courage and the way that she lived her life”,” said Murrow alumna and close friend Margo Myers, who was a classmate at WSU, as well as a close co-worker at KOMO-TV.
At the ceremony, Kathi Goertzen’s parents, two daughters, and her husband Rick Jewett who spoke of how Kathi always kept a special place in her heart for her alma mater.
WSU was her family, for her love of the Cougs was pure and sincere,” said Jewett.  “Our family is hugely proud to be her right now to honor Kathi and to honor WSU, and we know that this building and all the teaching and learning that’s going to go on inside is going to keep Kathi’s love for the Cougars alive.”
Goertzen was a 1980 graduate of the Murrow School, back when it was part of the College of Liberal Arts.  She was a key figure in formation of the Murrow College. Last spring, the WSU Board of Regents approved the renaming of the building, a tribute that is unprecedented in recent memory, a tribute which  recognizes her outstanding career as a journalist and her unparalleled love and commitment to WSU and to the dignity and grace with which she carried herself during her public battle with a brain tumor.
“We honor Kathi in the most fitting manner, by paving the path for a new generation of students,” said Murrow College Founding Dean Lawrence Pintak. “In Kathi’s honor we pledge to create a new generation of students armed with the latest technology, yet steeped in the traditions of Edward R. Murrow. It’s what we believe she would have wanted.”
Contact: Darin Watkins, Murrow College (509) 335-4456, darin.watkins@wsu.edu