Remembering a Westminster advocate and pioneer

Debora Swatsworth Foster, 60, after courageous battle  with cancer on March 11.  Foster graduated from Westminster College in 1974 and in 2003 was named vice president-corporate communications for H.J. Heinz Company.

Foster is most known around the college as the first female president of the Board of Trustees.

"Deb Foster was one of the classiest women ever and has done so much for the college," President Richard Dorman said.

President Dorman and Foster developed a close friendship since his arrival on campus.

"I feel a particular sense of loss with her because she was the one on the other end of the phone when they offered me the job," he said.

President Dorman said she helped him adjust to his new life at the college.

"She took me under her wing that first year, made sure I got settled in, introducing me to a lot of people," he explained. "Bev and I got really close to her over the last couple years."

2012 Alumna Katelyn Moga served on the Board of Trustees with Foster.

"I'm so thankful to have known Deb and to have seen her love of the college as a family," she said. “It sincerely opened my eyes to the responsibility of being an alumnus and what it means to give back to an institution that has provided us all with so much."

When Moga learned that Foster had been battling breast cancer, she had her sorority sisters send a card to Foster. Moga said the two shared a bond ever since.

"When she approached me at the next Board meeting to offer her thanks for the gesture, she lifted the inside of her suit jacket to show me the ZTA ink Pink! ribbon pin that I had sent," she explained. "She said that she wore it nearly every day to remember Westminster and the family of support that stems from it and the strength that it can bring you."

Moga said the gesture left a permanent imprint on her heart.

"I will never forget those words and it has remained my most cherished memories of Deb Foster."

President Dorman said he sends his condolences to those close to Foster.

"Our prayers and our thoughts are going out to her husband Bill and her son Jared who graduated from here in 2008."