Kateri Brow, 49; Dedicated Life To Improving Schools In Issaquah

A community celebration of the life of Kateri Brow begins at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Issaquah High School gymnasium, 700 Second Ave. The family requests donations be sent to the Issaquah Schools Foundation, c/o Mike Bernard, 4679 173rd Ave. S.E., Issaquah, WA 98027. ---------------------------------------------------------------

Kateri Brow's life pursuit was to make the Issaquah schools the best they could be. This past weekend she died trying.

The Issaquah superintendent succumbed to cancer at 7:05 last night at Providence Hospital in Seattle. Ms. Brow, 49, worked right up until she checked herself into the hospital last Thursday morning for what she thought would be a short stay.

Earlier in the week, she had trouble breathing because of lung tumors. A malignant brain tumor, removed in August 1991, had since spread to both lungs and kidneys. The kidney and lung tumors were inoperable, and radiation and chemotherapy failed to control their growth.

Ms. Brow had cut back her workload in the past year. And this fall Ms. Brow and the School Board hired Deputy Superintendent Bill Stewart to take over day-to-day district business. But the dedication and vision she built into a 23-year career with the Issaquah School District remained until the end.

As early as this summer, Ms. Brow knew she had a lot less time, said Rich McCullough, superintendent of the neighboring Snoqualmie Valley School District. Nobody knew how much less, not even Ms. Brow.

Last month Ms. Brow talked candidly about her odds on life. She knew she was in a "precarious position." She said the last hope she had was that her cancer would go into remission

"I think, well, that could happen to me. It may not, but if it did it sure would be nice," Ms. Brow had said in her matter-of-fact way. "I'm not foolhardy. You hope for the best and prepare yourself for the worst. But there is that little window of hope."

Ms. Brow was the kind of woman who opened windows and doorways to worlds. And in 1987, when it felt like the world was going to come crashing down on the small school district after the former superintendent resigned over a $1.5 million debt, Ms. Brow stepped forward.

For Ms. Brow, then head of curriculum and instruction, it took a crash course on district budgeting and a lot of long hours, said her secretary, Lorraine Morton. But Ms. Brow won the support of teacher and parent group leaders and got the district budget balanced - in her own unconventional way.

At first glance, her flowing blouses and loose pants caught people off guard. The long, tossled brown hair was a legacy to her high-school days as a 60s flower child, said Karen Taylor Sherman, who befriended Ms. Brow during Sherman's 12 years on the Issaquah School Board. Sherman retired last year as she fought her own battle with breast cancer.

"It was hard for her once she became a superintendent to change her form of dress," said Sherman. "The idea that it mattered to anybody how she was attired was foreign to her. Time and time again I saw people discount her, and then the voice would boom and the brain power would become evident and ooh, did they line up. That was the effect she had on people."

Ms. Brow has been called the district's spiritual leader and educational guru. She quickly became a state educational pioneer in building-based management, opening local school control to the principal and staff. Her leadership and vision was honored with awards ranging from "Educator of the Year" by the Issaquah Education Association in 1980 to "Outstanding Leadership Award" from the Washington Association of School Administrators in 1988.

The oldest of four sisters, Ms. Brow was born in Havre Boucher, Nova Scotia, on Aug. 4, 1943, and raised in Neah Bay. She earned her doctorate from the University of Washington, and taught for five years in Seattle schools before settling in Issaquah in 1971.

As she gazed through her window of hope last month, Ms. Brow was keenly aware of how her personal crisis affected the community. Community support had helped her face her fate. And in a modest way, Ms. Brow was pleased her stature as a community leader could help other people live with cancer.

"Don't make this sound like I'm a braggert," Ms. Brow began. "But I do think that when people who have been recognized for having done something in a community face a life-threatening situation, if they handle it with grace, it can help other people in similar situations.

"If you collapse and say, `Woe is me, I have this, I have that,' people say, `If she can't do it, how can I possibly do it?' It helps people to see that somebody else is dealing with the issue they or a loved one are dealing with."

Ms. Brow is survived by her sisters, Peggy F. Alderson of Alaska, Anne Dawley of Port Angeles and Molly Metcalf of Longview; her close friend Jane Thomas; and numerous nieces and nephews.