• Hi! I’m Kat

    (borrowed from Mimi’s 50th reunion web page)

    BS, Early Childhood/Elementary Education/Special Needs, Wheelock College of Education & Human DevelopmentUniversity of New Mexico 1983 (MA, Special Education with a Major in Gifted Education)University of New Mexico 1999 (DEd, Administration and Supervision/Organizational Development)

    Partner/Spouse

    Bob Richter-Sand

    What I’m up to now

    Retired
    Living in Albuquerque, NM
    Grew up in Cheltenham, PA

    Residence(s)

    Peabody Hall

    Organizations

    Wheelock Glee Club

    Wheelock Family Theatre

    My journey…

    Since graduation, I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, PA, Idaho Falls, ID, and Albuquerque, NM. Each location allowed me to teach–first at a private elementary and then in public schools. I enjoyed connecting with peers through participation in multiple programs of study at several universities. My deepest opportunities arose within the field of gifted education classrooms in Albuquerque Public Schools, and later, as a Professional Staff Developer working with peers in collegial teams to support educational administrators and principals with reflective and outcome-based best practices in teaching.

    Over the course of my career, I was fortunate to be a recipient of several Rockefeller Foundation grants, a New Mexico Public Education Department grant for bringing artists into the schools to work with teachers, American Educational Research Foundation (AERA) academic grants, and a Fulbright Educational Grant that sent me to Japan and connected my group of educators to many Japanese schools, labs, writers/poets, artists, and politicians. Upon my return to the US, this honor enabled me to serve as a host teacher for yearly Japanese cultural interns who came to the US to share, with students, their traditional crafts, music, language, and brushwork for Kanji characters.

    Retirement has provided me with time to write and occasionally publish, and a renewed dedication to wheel-thrown porcelain in the Japanese Arita method, gardening, photography, travel, and tackling the process of learning to paint with soft pastels. While each of these passions has their own purpose and benefits, aviation is truly something I’d always thought was out of reach in my own life. In our years together, my husband Bob became a licensed Sport Pilot, and I’ve taken over 200 hours of flight instruction. We ended up ordering a Kitfox airplane kit in 2011 and built its parts from the frame out; this included the body, wings, electronics, engine, radios, the tail number registration, and execution of a paint design! It took six dedicated years, start to finish, before Bob was able to test-fly the Kitfox SuperSport 7, a 2-seater Light Sport Aircraft, under the ‘wing’ of his CFI and fellow pilots. Once it passed FAA flight-worthy certification, we began flying together after Bob accrued 40 hours of solo flight testing to ensure his knowledge and performance of the plane in multiple conditions. Sadly, I had to discontinue my own flight training due to medical reasons, but it is still a wonder to understand this world and the passion of its fellow aviators. One of my favorite views is from the passenger/co-pilot side of our cockpit, capturing many unique geological features from the altitude of 3000+ ft AGL.

    My husband Bob and I currently have two beautiful whippets, one of them (out of two service dogs I trained) still alerting me to dropping glucose levels. It’s a beautiful circle in terms of the deep relationships we’ve had over 40 years with this special breed.

    Bob (MIT, 1976) and I have two grown kids–Erica and Matt–both of whom live in southern CA with their own families. It’s very nice to visit, and just as nice to get home and recover from the cacophony of four rambunctious (but wonderful) grandchildren, too!

    Looking forward to our special 2026 reunion activities and reconnecting with BU Wheelock alum!

    My friends…

    Hola, mi amigas! @Angela Yakovleff @Bonnie Page @Margaret Webb @Regina Bachini @Carla Uribe @Brita Josephson @Daria O’Connor @Dolores Testa @Elaine Allen @Caroline Imbrie @Gayle Goldberg @Marianne Chellgren @Mary Mason @Nora Richards @Karen Ezzi @Diane Thompson @Nancy Alvanas and others I recall so well!

    When I wasn’t in class you could find me…

    hanging out to draw and paint in Wheelock’s beautiful ART STUDIO!

    in the library!

    working in the Peabody Dorm kitchen!

    in the student center for snacks and meeting friends!

    walking to Coolidge Corner!

    Favorite memories…

    I LOVED being in Glee Club. Rehearsals and practices helped me work hard to learn new pieces. And being a huge part of the Wheelock Family Theatre’s productions was AMAZING.

    I loved Marcia Folsom and Joan Thornton, also Dr. Struthers!

    Can we plan to see you at the reunion?

    Attending Reunion

    Kat, Bob, beside Kitfox N104 Yankee
    Family reunion in NM, Nov 2025
    Kat and Bob, Mar 2026, Monument Valley

  • Being Open Minded

    “Be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out.” – Groucho Marx

  • Chasing rabbits

    If you chase two rabbits, you will catch neither.

  • Art & Fear

    You learn how to make your work by making your work. 

    You make good work by among other things making lots of work that isn’t good and gradually weeding out the parts that aren’t good. 

    Your work is your guide. 

    Art & Fear

  • Hard Choices

    Great words to live by:

    Easy choices hard life. Hard choices easy life.

  • Worth Fighting For?

    Worth Fighting For?

    Fight the fights that are worth fighting. Don’t fight just to fight, and don’t put yourself out there for something that’s not worth it. This applies to everything in life – business, friends, family. With friends and family, very often there is something that you kind of want but the other person really wants. You want the living room to be organized in a certain way and the other person wants it completely different. If you don’t care that much, then it’s a fight that’s not worth fighting. If you care strongly about something then you should advocate for it. But if you don’t care, and it’s better to preserve the relationship then let the other person win.

  • Top Athletes

    Roger Federer made an interesting comment in a recent interview: The difference between the #3 and #4 tennis player is bigger than the difference between #4 and #200. What separates these guys is not their talent or their dedication. It’s their mental game. The top competitors have the best mental game.

  • The Way Out

    Most often…

    The only way out is through.

    Said another way:

    If you’re going through hell… keep going!

    Quiting is not an option. Keep grinding and keep pushing until you break through.

  • What Makes You Special

    What Makes You Special

    Far too often, people think they are special because they come from a special situation like a royal family, or have an exceptional talent that makes them different and better. It’s not what you say or where you come from that makes you special.

    The truth is this:

    You are not special because of who you are but what you do.

    You become special through your actions. By what you do. Every day, day in and day out. Your actions define who you are and the person you will become.

  • Pre

    Pre

    Steve “Pre” Prefontaine was one of the greatest runners of all time. He had epic quotes that inspired me all my life. Here are a few:

    To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

    It’s not who’s the best – it’s who can take the most pain.

    “Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it.”

    “I do it because I can, I can because I want to, I want to because you said I couldn’t.”

    I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.

    A lot of people run a race to see who is the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more.