Kit Gilbert
Local artist Kit Gilbert passed away July 30, 2024, after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease. Her full name was Betty Marie Gilbert, but she was known to everyone as Kit.
She was the daughter of James David and Marie Bryant Gilbert. She grew up in Texas ranch country about thirty miles from Colorado City. Her favorite childhood activity was riding her horse through the grasslands every day after school.
After graduation from Colorado City High School, she enrolled in the University of Texas in Austin and, after two years, transferred to the University of Idaho, where she graduated with a B.S. Degree in Microbiology in 1967. The job she enjoyed most after graduation was a three-year post at the Portland Oregon Zoo as part of a National Science Foundation grant.
After living in Portland for twenty years, she moved to Ruston in the early 1980s where she established her real estate company, Gilbert Realty.
Her art career began in Portland and continued in Ruston. Through the years she has had one- person shows in Louisiana and Arkansas and has shown her work in various galleries.
After retiring and selling her company, she purchased the building at the corner of West Alabama and Trenton Street where her studio was located and where she built a large art gallery. Through the years she gave many one-person shows for fine local artists, as well as showing her own large abstract paintings and smaller works. The building is now part of the Ross Lynn Foundation and is named the Gilbert Art Center. Kit was preceded in death by her parents and by her brother, Douglas Gilbert.
She is survived by her partner Carole Tabor and by Carole’s daughter Miranda Pontes and grandson, Landon Sims Whitcomb as well as by cousins Gil Lawton and Ricky Lawton and by numerous friends in the Ruston Community. A special survivor is her beloved foxhound, Honey.
Special thanks go to Dr. Ben Grigsby and his staff at Northwood Medical Center, to the staff of Best Home Health, and to care givers Joan King- Abner, Delores Thompson, and Carolyn Tyler.
Friends are invited to share a celebration of Kit’s life, to be held on Saturday, August 10, 2024, at 10:30 a.m. in the Gilbert Art Center, 301 N. Trenton in Ruston.
Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.kilpatrickfuneralhomes. com.
