Diane Katzman
Diane Katzman, parent, was featured in the 3.11.10 Salem News in an article about her recent fundraiser that benefits women in Dent County. "The giving spirit has a stranglehold on Diane Katzman of Ladue, who says when she dies she wants to have just one dollar left in her pocket. Katzman is a long way from poverty. She turned a family hobby of making jewelry around the kitchen table into a multi-million dollar business called Diane Katzman Designs. Her work has appeared at New York's Museum of Arts & Design, been sold by Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue and appeared on models for Calvin Klein and Kenneth Cole. About three years ago Katzman, on top of the world, you might say, got her world turned upside down. She was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer and had a lumpectomy, then chemotherapy and radiation. The diagnosis came at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis, and so did all of her care and treatment. After six months of healing, and prayers and help from friends, family and neighbors, Katzman says her life was changed. When Katzman knew she was going to go bald from the chemotherapy, she had a haircutting ceremony, and her three daughters, mother, mother-in-law and sisters-in-law took turns cutting 15 inches of hair. Katzman donated the hair to Locks of Love, and she’s been giving ever since. The latest beneficiaries are Dent County women. Katzman had her 50th birthday party Feb. 21 in the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus. In lieu of presents, she asked the 300 or so guests to bring a donation for breast cancer diagnosis, and earmarked those funds for Dent County women who are uninsured and underinsured. As of this week, Katzman said that fund is right at $45,000. Why Dent County women? Katzman and her family have been through here many times before to canoe on the Current River, where she remembers “many a sunburn.” And they know a little bit more about Dent County because John Burroughs School, where their daughters attended, has a 44-acre wilderness camp in Pioneer Forest along Sinking Creek called Drey Land. (Leo Drey, JBS alum of ’34, leased the land to the school 50 years ago for $1 a year.) Burroughs students maintain the land and have cleared miles of trails. If a student is injured or sick, they are taken to Salem Memorial District Hospital. Other than Drey Land, knowledge of a few trips to SMDH and the Current River, there is no connection between the Katzmans and Dent County. Until now."
