Ben Margiott/Arizona Republic

Kate Smith shares her story at The Phoenix Theatre on Oct. 3, 2015.

KJZZ partners with the Arizona Republic to bring you the Arizona Storytellers series. We record the live events and share them with you on the radio. In Phoenix, the storytellers sometimes share stories about our community or the life events that have shaped them in general. Megan Finnerty is the creator of the series. 

In 1958, two years before Kate Smith was born, her mother’s cousin drowned in a lake in Kansas. Because of this, Smith’s mom instilled a fear of swimming in Smith and she never learned to swim.

In the late 1970s, Smith enrolled in the Air Force Academy. Each cadet had to swim 500 feet in 5 minutes in order to graduate. Smith took swimming lessons for three years and struggled to swim more than 450 feet in that time frame. Junior year, one officer tried teaching Smith survival swimming.

Kate Smith is an attorney and Air Force veteran.

The next storytelling event is March 2, 2016, at the Phoenix Art Museum. 

→ Hear More Arizona Storytellers