Kitty Lou Tilghman

Catherine Lou "Kitty" Thompson Tilghman (1920-1988) earned a bachelor's degree in English and education from the University of South Carolina in 1941. She married Horace Tilghman Jr. in 1942.

She wanted to assure that a portion of the family property on Waties Island and Tilghman Point would be protected as a resource for education and felt that Coastal Carolina, with its growing marine science program, was the ideal partner. In 1992, she made a substantial cash gift to the Coastal Educational Foundation to be used to purchase the property from a charitable trust established in the will of Anne Tilghman Boyce. In 1995, Coastal began a partnership with The Nature Conservancy of South Carolina to protect the property with a perpetual conservation easement.

She died July 8, 1988.

Tilghman was named an honorary founder of Coastal Carolina University in 1997.