Brewer High School

Katherine Gibbs Heselton, 1981, Field Hockey, Basketball, Softball

Katherine Gibbs Heselton was a phenomenal three sport athlete who earned Brewer’s prestigious Ohmart Athlete of the Year Award her senior year. This dedicated field hockey, basketball and softball star was a fierce competitor, a quality Gibbs’ attributes to growing up with two older brothers! She also possessed the magic ingredient for athletic success: grit. She was a great student of all the sports in which she participated; this, coupled with her strong work ethic enabled her to be one of the most successful, versatile athletes in Brewer History. As captain of all three sports, she displayed exceptional leadership skills which sparked a successful 20-year coaching career post college.

As a field hockey player, Gibbs is widely known as the best goalie to wear a Witches’ uniform. Joining the team as a freshman with no prior field hockey experience, she quickly found her niche as the starting goalie where she remained throughout her career. Her spectacular defensive play helped the Witches make it to the Eastern Maine Field Hockey Tournament her junior and senior years. She possessed all the necessary qualities of a superior goalie: speed, agility, great stick and ball control. Her senior year, she amassed over 100 saves as Brewer’s goalie, a rare milestone for goalkeepers and earned PVC All-Conference Team honors. 

Gibbs played four years of basketball, beginning as a forward then advancing to varsity as a forward and guard her junior and senior years. She earned the team’s top defensive player honors her senior year. Brewer Girls’ Basketball Coach of ten years and 2023 Brewer Athletic Hall of Fame Inductee Paul Soucy recalls, “Kathy was one of the most coachable people I ever had the honor of working with. She was the ‘unsung hero’ of the basketball team due to her outstanding defensive work and her ability to put points on the board in clutch moments.”

In the world of sport, it’s very rare for players to make the varsity team their freshman year. It’s even more rare for a freshman softball pitcher to start every game. In addition to her domination on the mound, she crushed at the plate as well. As a freshman, she was one of the top three players on the team with a .600 batting average and subsequently earned Brewer’s Rookie Player of the Year award. Gibbs was the Witches’ number one pitcher all four years with a career record of 36-4. She was undefeated in 25 regular season games her junior and senior seasons, 15 during her senior year. She pitched the Brewer Softball Team to four PVC Class A Championship titles, two Eastern Maine Championship titles and two state runner-up titles. During the 1981 season, Gibbs outstanding pitching was a significant reason the Witches had an undefeated regular season record of 15-0, including one memorable game where Gibbs pitched a six-hit shutout victory over Bangor, 7-0. During the 1981 state championship game, Gibbs’ tenacity and mental toughness was on display for nine grueling innings (six regulation and three extra innings). Coach Paul Soucy noted it was one of the best performances he’s ever seen in all his years of coaching. “She was the nucleus of the softball team. Her defensive work from the pitcher’s position played a key role in the success of our season. Opposing batters found her slingshot style confusing. No one in this area had seen it before which made her a fast and furious ace on the mound. Not only was she our pitcher, but we relied on her hitting,” states Coach Soucy. And could Gibbs hit! “We’d practice in the batting cage and she hit balls at 100mph, she was that good!” exclaimed Soucy. Gibbs was Brewer’s perennial lead-off hitter with a career batting average of .477. She was a pull hitter, a strategic and accomplished bunter, and one of the fastest runners in the league as evidenced by her expert base stealing skills. Her senior year, she led the Brewer team stats with 13 stolen bases and 30 total hits. Her batting average her senior year was an impressive .492, scored 26 runs, had 14 RBI’s and three game winning hits!  For her outstanding accomplishments, she was named to the 1981 PVC All-Conference First Team and voted the 1981 PVC Most Valuable Player. 

Although Gibbs received a full scholarship to play field hockey at Old Dominion University in Virginia, she chose to stay closer to home to focus on her studies. After graduating from the University of Maine with a B.S. in Education, she taught health and physical education and coached field hockey, basketball and softball for several schools in Massachusetts and Maine, a coaching career that spanned 20 years. This included five years coaching softball at Maranacook High School in Readfield, Maine where she led the Black Bears to a Western Conference Championship title in 2003 and a state runner-up title in 2004. For her achievements, she was the 2004 Softball Coach of the Year.  

Currently, Katherine Gibbs Heselton is the Owner of Merrill’s Detector Dog Services which trains and offers K9 services in explosives, narcotics, and search and recovery. She has served overseas on a contract called “No Soldier Left Behind” with a Human Remains Detection dog. Her K9 teams have contracts with the NBA, the Miami Dolphins, numerous concert arenas, and schools throughout the United States. She has taught seminars in K9 handling for correctional and law enforcement and she continues to assist and donate her time for missing person’s cases. Although her K9 units have her traveling all over the country, Gibbs currently splits her time between her home/K9 business in Readfield, Maine and her 92-acre farm/Labrador Training Facility in Smithland, Kentucky with her husband J.C. Gibson. Her three adult children, Craig, Anthony and Sarah, each have significant roles in her K9 business.

Katherine Gibbs Heselton is one of the most talented three-sport athletes in Brewer History and we welcome her into the Brewer Athletic Hall of Fame!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE INDUCTION AND ACCEPTANCE SPEECH OF KATHERINE GIBBS HESELTON

Presenter Deborah Dearborn and Inductee Katherine Gibbs Heselton