Funeral arrangements for the late Katrina Pyne Brown, a first grade reading teacher at Baker Elementary, have not been announced yet because her son, Brennan, is still in the hospital recovering from injuries in the traffic crash last Saturday night.

Ms. Brown, who was the 2021 winner of the annual Kathryn L. Brenner Outstanding Teacher Award, perished in a traffic Saturday night while returning home from a Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association game. Brennan was a member of the KOHA team.

A Go Fund Me page has been established to help with costs associated with Brennan’s recovery.

Ms. Brown’s other immediate survivors are other son Gibson and husband Darrick.

The Langeland Funeral Home in Kalamazoo is handling arrangements when they become available. 

Good friend Bonnie Steensma of Wayland said of Brown, “She was truly an amazing human being, and loved my son exactly as if he were her own. I know this community is also heartbroken, as she was a loving, inclusive, and caring educators she excelled at matching each and every student to the material they needed to reach their potential. She went above and beyond to make sure each one of her students had every resource they needed.

“Please keep her sons and her family in your prayers. Her boys were her everything, and she was the most fantastic mother to them. They are going to be broken without her.”