Deaths from air accidents in Fiordland during the Deer Wars were common and she knew many of them, something which stayed with her.
Initially, she had a career in hospitality and spent 10 years as a professional cake decorator but, about a decade ago, she decided she wanted to "do something more".
Having been good at writing and English at school and always interested in how people thought and psychology, she enrolled in a double degree at Massey University in psychology and sociology, studying from home.
It was during that time she realised there was a problem with rural mental health and, as a farmer’s wife living on a beef and deer farm, it was a natural progression to start working on that topic.
While commodity prices and the weather all affected farmers, that was not the main demographic or problem; it was young men in the 18 to 30 age group, mostly concentrated on 18 to 24-year-olds, she said.
Kathryn dived straight into a social services degree in counselling to become a counsellor and then decided more needed to be done.
"Somebody needed to research why these young men are dying, what is happening that they feel they can’t get help?"
Her masters research was on barriers to young rural men seeking help. Now she is doing a PhD through the University of Otago on the mental health of small rural communities and what helps and harms them, something she described as her purpose.
Kathryn wants to be able to "make a change and leave a mark".
On the surface, her previous career as a cake decorator and her current roles might seem roads apart, but both have an artistic element.
"I need to think outside the box, I need to think of different ways to reach people who are hard to reach, make use of my knowledge."
"I get a huge amount of satisfaction from the different roles I do, I love what I do," she said.
She understood farming, living in an isolated area and that farming and home and family were so interconnected — "someone in an office in Auckland may not get that".
"I believe farming is a culture ... it’s a way of being, of people and traditions and land and history."
Kathryn was the 2022 recipient of the Educational Excellence Award for Otago Polytechnic for her research on young rural men and in 2023 she was the winner of the Rural Women New Zealand Business Award. She is also a member of the Community Health Council for Te Whatu Ora Southern.
