EDITOR’S NOTE: The Telegraph will run the 10 biggest local stories of 2011 in the paper during the next several days.

MONT VERNON – David and Jaimie Cates may have done the impossible. They took Oct. 4 – from an infamous date when four murderous teenagers stole the life of a 42-year-old nurse – and turned it into a day of celebration.

“So much was taken from us on Oct. 4, 2009,” David Cates said when he announced the first Kimberly Cates Memorial Scholarship Fund golf tournament. “But we refuse to allow every Oct. 4th for the rest of our lives to be taken as well. We have decided instead to give ourselves the gift of celebrating Kim on this date and working to keep her memory alive through this scholarship.”

That was only a few months after Christopher Gribble was found guilty, and legally sane, of helping to kill David Cates’ wife during a early morning attack that also seriously wounded Jaimie. Gribble’s March 25 sentencing was the end of a grueling two years for Cates’ family and friends, which also included the first-degree murder trial of the other assailant, Steven Spader.

A year and a half after the home invasion murder that rocked the tiny village and shocked the rest of the state, Judge Gillian Abramson sentenced both murderers to the harshest penalty the state could impose, life in prison plus 76 years.

Jaimie Cates made her first appearance in the courtroom in time to hear Abramson pronounce Gribble’s sentence. That was just after David Cates addressed the jury, Abramson and “the murderer in this courtroom,” he said.

David Cates has since founded a scholarship fund, which he heads with friend Sharon Soucy.

It is awarded annually to a Souhegan High School senior who plans to pursue a career in the field of medicine. Kimberly Cates was a registered nurse who had worked at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua and Milford Medical Center.

“Through this scholarship, we hope to encourage students who are compelled, as Kim was, to help others,” Cates and Soucy said. “As a nurse who worked in the emergency room, obstetric and pediatric departments, Kim was a friend, a nurturer, and an advocate for the patients she cared for.”

In August, David and Jaimie Cates hosted the first Kim’s Concert. The father and daughter seemed to be everywhere during the day-long concert at Alpine Grove in Hollis, greeting well-wishers and thanking people for contributing.

By the time the concert was held, the scholarship fund had already handed out more than $12,000 in scholarships, which were presented in June to 11 graduating high school seniors.

In October, 156 golfers withstood a pouring rain to attend the first Kimberly Cates Memorial Scholarship Fund golf tournament.

The theme of the tournament, “Take Back the Date,” took place on the second anniversary of what has become known as the Mont Vernon Murder.

Kimberly Cates’ death didn’t just shock people around the state and the world. It also led to historic changes in state law.

On June 8, the Legislature passed HB 147, what came to be known as the Kimberly Cates Law.

“I believe strongly that there are some crimes so heinous that the death penalty is warranted,” Gov. John Lynch said in a statement issued after he signed the bill into law later in June.

David Cates testified on behalf of the law, which expanded the state’s death penalty criteria to include home invasions that result in murder, or specifically “murder in occupied structures.”

“If you need a reason to support this bill, close your eyes and remember the last moments of my wife’s life. Imagine her not knowing if her daughter, her best friend, was dead …” he said in part.

Joseph G. Cote can be reached at 594-6415 or jcote@nashuatelegraph.com. Also follow Cote on Twitter (@Telegraph_JoeC).