University Southern California Trojans
USC Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2005
Katherine B. Loker–after whom USC’s track and field stadium is named–was intimately associated with USC for more than 50 years, starting with her undergraduate days when she participated on the track team. She and her late husband, Donald P. Loker, a well-known actor who later became a vice president of the StarKist Foods Company (which was founded by her father in 1917), donated $27 million to the university, placing them among the top individual benefactors in the history of USC. Included among those contributions were $2 million for the Katherine B. Loker Track and Field Stadium, which opened in 2000, and $17 million in 1998 to support hydrocarbon research at the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute (the world’s leading research center in its field) that the couple established in 1977. Both were the largest gifts ever received by those respective departments. An honorary trustee at USC, she received numerous awards from the university, including an honorary doctorate in 1997, the Presidential Medal (USC’s highest honor), the Asa V. Call Award (the USC Alumni Association’s highest honor) and the Raubenheimer Award from the College of L.A.S. She also served various roles with the California Science Center of Los Angeles, the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda and the Los Angeles Music Center, as well as being an avid supporter of the Donald P. Loker Cancer Treatment Center at the California Hospital Medical Center, Los Angeles, and of Harvard and Cal State Dominguez Hills. She died at age 92 on June 26, 2008.
