Kadena graduate killed in West Africa

[unhappycamper]

Peace Corps volunteer Catherine "Kate" Puzey, 24, pictured here in the village of Tabaski, Benin, in December, was killed last week outside her home. She was the first Peace Corps volunteer killed in that West African country since the Peace Corps program started there in 1968. Puzey was a graduate of Kadena High School on Okinawa.


Kadena graduate killed in West Africa
By David Allen, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, March 19, 2009

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — A 2002 honors graduate of Kadena High School was killed last week in the West African nation of Benin.

Catherine "Kate" Puzey, 24, a Peace Corps volunteer, was found dead March 12 outside her home in the village of Badjoude, where she taught English.

The Peace Corps and the U.S. State Department have released no further details of her death. However, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted her father, Harry Puzey, a former Department of Defense Dependents Schools teacher, as saying a suspect has been identified.

"We don’t think her death was political or random, but an individual act by one person," he told the paper.

Kate Puzey was born in Germany, where both her parents were DODDS teachers. The family moved to Okinawa when she was 7 and she graduated in 2002 from Kadena High School with top honors. She was president of the student council during her junior and senior years and was the salutatorian of her graduating class.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=61413

[MADem]

1. How sad for her classmates, how devastating for her parents. nt