{"id":1376,"date":"2021-03-05T11:59:42","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T18:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nau.edu\/special-collections\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2021-03-05T12:01:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T19:01:12","slug":"katie-lee-inducted-into-the-arizona-womens-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/katie-lee-inducted-into-the-arizona-womens-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Katie Lee Inducted into the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame!"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"\"
Portrait of Katie Lee
Photo Courtesy: ML Lincoln<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Special Collections and Archives is proud to announce that Katie\r\nLee was just selected as a member of the Arizona Women\u2019s Hall of Fame. As many\r\nof you know, Katie passed away on November 1, 2017 at the age of 98. During her\r\nlife, Katie was passionate about many things but the preservation of the Colorado\r\nRiver and Glen Canyon were closest to heart. Floating on the Colorado River\r\nthrough Glen Canyon was where and how Katie decompressed from the noise of\r\nlife, reconnected with the Earth, and found a quiet peacefulness. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

The timing of this award is perfect, as the department\u2019s current\r\nexhibit, Full Circle: the\r\nLife and Legacies of Katie Lee<\/a><\/em>, celebrates Katie\u2019s many accomplishments\r\nand work to preserve the beauty of the Southwest. Katie Lee was many things\u2026she\r\nwas an actress, writer, musician, environmental activist, world traveler, cowgirl\r\npoet, world-class cusser, and an inspiration to anyone who knew her or has been\r\nexposed to her. To give you a better sense of who Katie was and how she\r\ncontinues to inspire and influence us, I would like to share a few excerpts from\r\nher nomination to give you a sense of her contributions to the state of Arizona\r\nand beyond. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Although Katie Lee was born in\r\nIllinois, her family moved to Tucson, Arizona, when she was still an infant.\r\nKatie was raised in Tucson and considered Arizona her home throughout her life.\r\nKatie lived 76 of her 98 years in Arizona. Katie frequently spoke fondly of her\r\nformative years in Tucson and the impact of tramping around and hiking in the\r\nSabino Canyon area had on the rest of her life. Following Katie\u2019s graduation\r\nfrom high school in 1937, she attended and graduated from the University of\r\nArizona in 1943 with a bachelor\u2019s degree of fine arts in drama. She left\r\nArizona in 1948 to pursue careers in acting and folk singing, but frequently\r\nreturned during the summers to enjoy the Colorado River, Grand Canyon, and most\r\nimportantly, Glen Canyon. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"
Katie Lee in Labyrinth Canyon, Glen Canyon.
Photo courtesy: Tad Nichols Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Katie considered Glen Canyon and the\r\nColorado River to be her lifeblood, a place where she would re-energize herself\r\nphysically, emotionally, and spiritually. She, along with Tad Nichols and Frank\r\nWright, would float leisurely down the river, exploring the inner canyons and\r\ntributaries. Katie wrote several songs and books about these experiences. When\r\nthe United States Bureau of Reclamation announced its plans to dam the Colorado\r\nRiver and flood Glen Canyon, Katie refocused her passion and energy toward\r\nprotecting and preserving Glen Canyon and the Colorado River. Katie, Edward\r\nAbbey, Martin Litton, and David Brower fought for several years to prevent Glen\r\nCanyon from being dammed and flooded. Ultimately, they were not successful and\r\nall four of them considered the damming of Glen Canyon to be their greatest\r\nfailure. Katie never stopped advocating for the protection of rivers, canyons, and\r\nwild spaces. She spent the next 51 years using her music, writing, and influence\r\nto raise awareness of the preservation of natural places. The loss of Glen\r\nCanyon served as a painful example of how something so fragile and beautiful\r\ncould be destroyed in the name of progress. In her later years, Katie\r\nencouraged people to fight for the things and places they love. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"
Katie Lee and Frank Wright, Glen Canyon. \r\nPhoto courtesy: Tad Nichols Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

During her life, Katie was recognized\r\nfor numerous achievements. In the 1940s and early 1950s, she was an actress in popular\r\nmovies; in the 1950s and 1960s, she transitioned to becoming a folk\r\nsinger\/song-writer and river runner; and in the 1970s until the end of her life\r\nshe was an author of non-fiction and fiction. Ultimately, Katie is remembered\r\nmore for a failure than a success. Katie, along with others, fought to prevent\r\nGlen Canyon Dam from being built and flooding the Edenesque Glen Canyon. Katie\r\nand her like-minded friends were not successful. The dam was built and Glen\r\nCanyon was submerged. Her triumph is how she responded to this failure. Others\r\nmay have walked away from this loss wounded and defeated. The loss of Glen\r\nCanyon strengthened Katie\u2019s resolve to fight against federal and commercial\r\ninterests over the preservation of natural places. From 1962 until her death,\r\nKatie fought like a warrior with her words and music to inspire people to\r\nprevent additional injustices from occurring, and she never stopped fighting to\r\nhave the Glen Canyon Dam eradicated. Katie\u2019s passion and plucked served as an\r\ninspiration to others, especially women, to battle and advocate for nature\u2019s\r\nbeauty. This is particularly true of Arizona\u2019s unique natural beauty, which\r\ncontinues to be under attack by commercial and political entities. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Even after her passing, Katie\r\ncontinues to inspire a new generation of environmental activists with her\r\narchival legacy. Her archives<\/a>\r\nare housed at the Cline Library on the campus of Northern Arizona University,\r\nnot far the areas she loved most \u2013 Jerome, her adopted home, and the Colorado\r\nRiver, the river that ran through her. Her archival legacy serves as a memory\r\nof a place long ago buried, never to be seen again as it was, and a sobering reminder\r\nto protect and fight for those places. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"
Katie Lee in Studio with Ray Martin.
Photo Courtesy: Chuck Stewart<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

In the short time that Katie\u2019s collection has been at NAU, it has inspired numerous students and community members to use it for academic and creative purposes. For example, Katie\u2019s collection was used by several young women in the Grand Canyon Semester course as a cornerstone for their final projects; beyond NAU, a young, female singer\/song-writer, Jessica Larrabee, wrote and sang a song that was inspired by Katie Lee titled \u201cCoyote<\/a>;\u201d a graduate student from the University of Wyoming used Katie\u2019s music in his thesis documentary film about the environmental impact of Glen Canyon Dam; and documentary film maker, Tyler Graham<\/a>, was inspired by Katie to kayak the length of \u201cGlen Canyon\u201d in 2018 to raise awareness of the loss of the Glen Canyon. These are just a few examples of how Katie\u2019s legacy of environmental activism continues to inspire a new generation to preserve the natural beauty of Arizona.  <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"
Jessica Larrabee of She Keeps Bees, Singer and Song Writer
Photo Courtesy: BB Island<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Near the end of her life, Katie would\r\nfrequently rhetorically ask, \u201cWhy are people interested in what I have to say?\u201d\r\nThe reason was aptly put by another environmental activist and writer, Craig\r\nChilds, \u201cKatie Lee speaks for the canyons and the sweet desert recesses. She is\r\nour foul-mouthed, lightning-eyed, boot-stomping balladeer, a character Louis\r\nL\u2019Amour never could have invented. Born from the rock itself, she is a lifetime\r\nof experience on this wild, restless, cradling ground. If you want to know this\r\nplace, you need to know Katie.\u201d Katie\u2019s life and achievements are very much a\r\npart of this \u201cwild, restless, cradling ground\u201d and the cultural, historical,\r\nand natural landscape of Arizona. <\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

\"\"
Glen Canyon, Aztec Creek, 1964.
Photo Courtesy: PT Reilly Collection<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Katie Lee lived a life passionately,\r\nfully and with purpose. Regardless of the area of her life she was involved\r\nwith, she did so with verve and zest. Today too many people are willing to\r\ncompromise to achieve a fraction of their goal; Katie approached environmental\r\nactivism as a personal crusade with total commitment and without compromise.\r\nKatie Lee embodied many of the qualities and characteristics that Arizonans\r\nembody, she was strong, fierce, intelligent, creative, hard-scrabbled, and\r\nresourceful. <\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special Collections and Archives is proud to announce that Katie Lee was just selected as a member of the Arizona Women\u2019s Hall of Fame. As many of you know, Katie passed away on November 1, 2017 at the age of 98. During her life, Katie was passionate about many things but the preservation of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-collections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1377,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1376\/revisions\/1377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/library-cline-special-collections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}