Karen Haight Huntsman was a force to be reckoned with.
As founder and CEO, Jon Huntsman Sr. was the face, heart and entrepreneurial spirit of Huntsman businesses, charitable endeavors and brands.
Karen, who died Monday at age 88, was a focused, doctrinal, confident, defender and spiritual director for the Huntsman juggernaut. She assessed philanthropical, political and social situations with an assessment that contained little waver.
When frequent event speaker Jon hit a last-minute conflict, Karen filled in, not with her husband’s text but her own, original message. And was a hit.
Aside from those occasions and a stint as a University of Utah regent, she avoided the spotlight, not because she was uneasy in a public setting but because she considered Jon the face and spokesperson of Huntsman undertakings.
She embraced candor and honest assessments, occasionally brutally so. Yet she made time for everyone, personally shopped for her sizable household, often seen pushing her cart along the aisles of Costco, where she appreciated quality and sensible prices.
She ruled her House of Huntsman with purpose, clarity and consistency. The Huntsman children would, among themselves, refer to the woman they loved, as “Queen Mother,” which if she knew — and there is little doubt she knew — would both scoff and smile at the title.
The crown jewel of their giving was the Salt Lake City’s cancer hospital and research complex, the largest between Seattle and the Midwest, the realization of a dream of conquering cancer, ironically a disease that ultimately claimed them both.
The family is also responsible for the fact that you are still able to read this newspaper. Buying The Salt Lake Tribune away from the Wall Street hedge fund that was stripping it for parts was a cause of Jon’s for years, brought to fruition by his son Paul in 2016. (Paul later managed the transition of The Tribune to its current nonprofit status.)
The couple’s largesse didn’t start, stall or end with the crusade against cancer. From expansive mental health facilities to libraries to Senior Games to Para-Olympics to the homeless to event arenas to thousands of other unnoticed acts of giving — billions of dollars, almost all landing in Utah — the Huntsmans have been Utah’s philanthropic First Family.
And Karen Haight Huntsman was the First Lady of philanthropy in their beloved state.
Editorials represent the opinions of The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board, which operates independently from the newsroom.