15 minutes with Catherine York Kingsley Westerman

I go by “Cat” to most people nowadays although I was most definitely “Catherine” in high school.

When did you graduate from Bluffton High School?

1997

Bring us up to date. Where have you've been since graduating from BHS?

I have been quite a few places since BHS. To keep it brief, I’ll list them:

1. North Manchester, Indiana—1997-2002—I earned my B.S. from Manchester College (now University), including study abroad in Athens, Greece.

2. East Lansing, Michigan—2002-2007ish—I earned my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Organizational Communication and Social Influence from Michigan State University

3. Morgantown, West Virginia—2007-08—I worked teaching/researching in the Department of Communication at West Virginia University.

4. Canonsburg/Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—2008-2010—I worked for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, in the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research, doing research on coal mine safety.

5. Knoxville, Tennessee—2010-2013—I worked teaching/researching in the School of Communication Studies at the University of Tennessee.

6. Fargo, North Dakota—just moved here in the summer of 2013.

What takes you to Fargo?

I just took a new job as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at North Dakota State University; I will be teaching, conducting research, and working with undergraduate, masters, and doctoral students. I technically have not started teaching yet, but I am already working on research (which pretty much never stops) and preparing for the fall semester at NDSU.

What's the earliest memory you have a Bluffton schools?

I moved to Bluffton the summer between eighth and ninth grade, so my first memory is of the high school, and it was the day of mass physicals for student athletes. I seem to recall this happened before the first day of school. Although I think I had been at band camp probably before that, the mass chaos of that day is what sticks out to me—the school I went to previously was much smaller so it was a bit overwhelming to be in a new place with so many people.

What was your best-ever soccer game played at BHS?

This is a tough one because I kept playing soccer after I left BHS—I played four years at Manchester and continued playing in leagues everywhere else I went. Sometimes I was playing 5-6 games a week!

I still play today and have already joined a team in Fargo despite having lived here such a short time. It feels like I have played about a million games since playing in high school.

A couple things I do remember about soccer at BHS: one was being very proud that I was part of the first official girls’ high school team—the first three years of high school, we were a club team.

We became “official” for my senior year of high school and I believe our record was 14-4-1 that year. That was pretty thrilling and felt really validating to finally have been sanctioned and then to really show everyone how good we were.

The second thing I remember about soccer in high school is all the great coaches we had. I can’t name them all, but I learned so much from them. In particular, I remember Mustaq Ahmed’s advice about passing the ball—you must follow through with your foot! I still use that advice now!

What car did you take your drivers test in?

I believe it was my folks’ Chevy Caprice, which was a big boat of a car.

What are you reading at the moment?

I currently have two books in progress: a murder mystery book called “Black Cherry Blues” and a satirical comedy called “A Confederacy of Dunces.”

Are you reading actual books or e-books?

I am reading one hard copy book and one e-book. Having moved so many times, I am always for less stuff, so if I can choose, I definitely go with e-books. My husband was an English major in college, so he has copies of some more “literary” books; sometimes I read his hard copy books to go with my e-books.

What are your favorite websites?

I am not too much of a surfer. I look at Yahoo.com and sometimes CNN.com for news and other stories of interest, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for social networking, and of course the website of whatever university I happen to be working for at the moment (ndsu.edu)!

Tell us about your husband?

My husband, Dave, is originally from Niagara Falls, New York. We met in graduate school at Michigan State; after I dumped my previous boyfriend to “focus on school,” I met Dave in the first semester I was at MSU and we have been together ever since.

I guess he didn’t detract too much from the focus on school because he was working toward the same degrees. We are both in the field of Communication, but we have different specializations. He spent the last six years working in the Department of Communication at West Virginia University and has just moved to Fargo with me to start a job at NDSU.

We will be living and working in the same town and at the same school for the first time in a long time. In fact, our new offices are right next door to each other. People always ask if we’ll be able to get along after being in separate locations for so long, and the answer is yes.

Who do you keep in contact with from your high school class?

I’m terrible at staying in touch with people; Karen McCullough is someone I’ve kept in touch with a bit over the years. Of course I am in touch with my cousin, Leah Steinmetz Richardson. Thanks to Facebook I have been able to see what a few more people from high school are up to these days, which has been nice—and they all seem to be flourishing, which is good to see.

When someone asks where you are from originally, how do you describe Bluffton to them?

Because I am not usually in a physical location near to Bluffton, usually I focus on geography. First I ask if they know northwest Ohio at all, then do they know where Toledo or Dayton are located, and if so, then I ask if they know Lima or Findlay and say Bluffton is between the two on I-75.

Most people haven’t heard of it, so if I do find someone who has been there or has driven by on I-75, it’s kind of an exciting moment. Sometimes I’ll tell them the size of the population to give them an idea of what kind of town it is, or I might say that we have a small university in Bluffton.

Depending on where I am, I might also make comparisons to other similar towns, like Goshen, Indiana, or North Manchester, Indiana. For example, Bluffton has its own movie theatre, whereas North Manchester does not.

Speaking of movies, what's the latest movie you saw? Was it in a theatre or NetFlicks or what? How would you rate the movie?

I saw “The Way Way Back” in a theater just last weekend. It was an interesting coming-of-age story that involves a teenage boy finding his way in a complex family situation. Of course it was a good summer movie because it was set at the beach! The part I could most relate to (as can perhaps many people of my age) was that the “way way back” refers to that jump seat they used to have in the back of old station wagons (the one that flipped up and faced backwards).

The kid in the movie had to sit in the way way back on the way to the beach house for the summer; I can definitely remember sitting in the way way back as a kid!