A bicyclist who was seriously injured Wednesday afternoon when she was struck by a pickup truck on High Street in Kennebunk has died, according to Kennebunk police.
Katherine Moxham, 46, died Friday at Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she had been listed in critical condition, police said.
Moxham, a Kennebunk resident, was riding her bicycle east on High Street shortly after 2 p.m. Wednesday when she was struck by an oncoming pickup truck driven by a teenager from Kennebunk.
The pickup crossed the centerline, struck Moxham, then ran off the road into a culvert. Police are not identifying the driver, who suffered minor injuries, because he is younger than 18. The accident remains under investigation, police said.
Moxham was a well-known volunteer in Kennebunk schools, said Katie Hawes, superintendent of RSU 21, and had two sons – an eighth-grader and a 10th-grader – in Kennebunk schools.
“She was just lovely,” Hawes said. “She was positive and always happy.”
Moxham volunteered in the schools’ libraries and often worked as a substitute teacher and librarian, Hawes said. She was on the board of trustees of the Kennebunk Free Library, the town’s public library. For the last few years, Hawes said, Moxham put together summer reading guides for pre-kindergarten students to eighth-graders – a total of 2,700 students.
“We send (the guides) home so the students get titles that are new and interesting to them so they stay reading over the summer,” Hawes said.
Hawes said it took Moxham two to three days to photocopy the guides for so many students, and she always brought a thank-you of some kind – a batch of cookies or a handwritten note – to the schools’ secretaries for allowing her to commandeer their photocopy machine for so long.
Hawes has already sent a note to her staff, and said she planned to send out a letter to parents Saturday informing them of Moxham’s death and details of counseling sessions that will be held at the Kennebunk Elementary School on Monday. The letter will be available on the RSU 21 website, and will be linked to on Twitter and Facebook, she said.
Counselors from the Center for Grieving Children will meet with the schools’ staff counselors from 8:30 to 9 a.m. Monday, Hawes said. From 9 to 10:30 a.m., counselors will be available in two rooms – one for students and one for staff and community members who feel the need to talk to someone. Hawes said that depending upon the response, there may be follow-up sessions scheduled.
Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:
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