All county schools wore blue Friday to honor Katelyn Gibson, a Henderson County High School sophomore who died on Tuesday.
Gibson is remembered for many traits, among them her confident and sassy personality, according to her obituary.
Katelyn was active in HCHS’s FFA program, where current Assistant Principal for the Career and Technical Education J.T. Payne got to know her last year.
Payne agreed that Katelyn was confident. He said her confidence was on display at an FFA horsemanship competition last year in which she, a freshman, went up against many upperclassmen. Payne, who said he doesn’t know much about horsemanship, said he came out of a meeting before the event and reported back to Katelyn the specifics he learned in the meeting that she needed to do.
Her response, he said, was, “I’ve got it under control.” And then she went out and beat a lot of those upperclassmen.
Payne said FFA and others at the high school have been thinking of ways to honor Katelyn. He said it was students’ idea for schools to wear blue for her on Friday. They chose blue because Katelyn spent much of her time at Blue Moon Stables, where she trained, rode and worked with horses. Blue, as well as gold, are the colors for FFA.
The family is asking in lieu of flowers people donate to Healing Reins, a local volunteer fire department of the Henderson County FFA.
Payne said the donations to the HCHS FFA will go toward establishing a scholarship in Katelyn’s honor.
To read Katelyn’s obituary, click here.
