To the surprise of her parents, Katherine Huebert was born with a cleft palate. In the first 15 years of her life, she underwent over 16 surgeries.

“That gave me a lot of character and really broadly is the base of who I am today,” Katherine says. “The strength that [my parents] gave me to get through that, the perseverance — it took a lot.”

Katherine has always admired her parents. So when the time came to choose a college, she enrolled at Fresno State.

“My parents have always been advocates of Fresno State,” Katherine says. “That’s where they met — that was the base of their relationship…They’ve been married for 59 years.”

Katherine joined a sorority at Fresno State and played tennis. She studied marketing, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1984. Like her parents, Katherine also met her husband while at Fresno State — to whom she’s been married for 32 years.

See more.