Perry, Katy, 1920-2014

Katy Perry was born Catherine Luke in Millinocket, Maine in 1920. She graduated from Stearns High School in 1938 and from Farmington State Normal School in 1941. In 1941 she married Bernard Perry and taught in Millinocket, Milo, and Whitefield, Maine. Subsequently Perry began freelance writing while living in Whitefield in the late 1940's. She began a daily interview show on WRDO Radio in Augusta in 1968, and recorded segments on local people and events. Perry later worked as a Public Relations specialist with the Maine Department of Human Services and co-anchored an educational program for underemployed Mainers in 1978. She published her first book, Drinking from a tin cup, in 1980. From 1980 until 1984 she published a weekly column called Around the valley, in the Maine Sunday telegram. After serving in the Peace Corps in Belize from 1985-87, she wrote two weekly columns. Since then she has published three more books: Only one ice box to fill, Mad Tuesdays, Pieces of earth, and two children's books, My grandmother wears crazy hats and The laughing lighthouse.