Kimberley M. Clawson Stone

Kimberley M Clawson Stone, 56, of Highlands Ranch, Colorado, died May 9, 2026 at The Denver Hospice in Denver, after living with HPV-linked anal cancer since May 2023.

Kim was born November 11, 1969 in Plentywood, Montana, and grew up in Outlook, where her high school graduating class was only three students. As a kid she walked the prairie, helped on her grandfather's ranch, where she was sometimes sent to fetch grain from the grain bin because her grandfather was afraid of mice. Her grandfather, Thomas "Tim" Clawson, was an early and lasting influence: a curious man with a stack of National Geographic magazines who got her onto the proto-Internet in the late 1980s. Her maternal grandfather, Henry Axten, was also a big influence on her. She carried the curiosity fostered by both her grandfathers for the rest of her life. She never made peace with chickens, and could never tolerate eating eggs. Her mother, Mae Clawson (Axten), taught her to cook, and she carried a love of cooking and baking throughout her life, including most of the family meals from an early age. She was an avid reader, and proud of her library card her whole life. Her book collection was always a prized possession.

She studied microbiology at Montana State University, earning her B.S. in Bozeman,and meeting her first husband Mike Stone. They moved around after graduation, including to Laramie, Wyoming. Eventually, they returned to the Bozeman area and she got a job helping to manage Dr. Al Jesaitis's lab. Bozeman was also where she started seriously playing Dungeons & Dragons. Tabletop RPGs and boardgames would be one of her main hobbies for the rest of her life, and make her many friends. She would go on to win many awards for her tabletop RPG skills.

Her son Connor was born in Bozeman in 1998. From the moment he arrived she was quietly, fiercely proud of him to anyone else who would listen, and regularly remarked to her husband Tim how proud she was of the person Connor has grown up to be.

Kim moved to Colorado to share custody of Connor, and there met her husband Tim. Her career moved through several lives in science: research at Replidyne, where she met lifelong friends; managing a lab producing microbiological test kits at Thermo Fisher; a stretch at the front office of Coda Coffee Roasters; and three years at home with Connor and her whippet Rohan during Connor's high school years. Along the way she authored many published scientific papers on antibiotic drug research, quietly leaving fingerprints on work that will outlast her. In her final chapter she returned to the work she would end up loving most; as a Clinical Research Coordinator at the University of Colorado healthcare system, and then as a Clinical Trial Monitor at IQVIA traveling sites across the country, she helped administer dozens of clinical trials, helping patients with ALS, Parkinson's, cancer, and infectious diseases find new treatments. She found great purpose in helping the patients in these trials find hope for treatment, and gave them her best even while undergoing her own.

Outside the lab, Kim was a serious fiber artist. She knit, spun her own yarn, and dyed her own wool. She loved every fiber she could get her hands on. She was a member of the Rocky Mountain Weavers Guild, and hosted her own podcast, The Fiber Files, traveling to interview people about their fiber animals. She had recently bought a loom and was looking forward to weaving on it; the cancer caught her before she could. The craft ran through her adult life and through many of her closest friendships. She won awards at the Estes Park Wool Market for her handspun yarn. She even took the trip of a lifetime to the Shetland Islands to participate in Shetland Wool Week.

Kim also did serious quilting and made her own clothes, and produced amazing quilts.

She was also a budding potter, and her husband Tim’s favorite mug is one that she made. She patronized many local ceramic artists and built an amazing collection of artisanal mugs.

She wanted to travel even more, and had an opportunity through various employers to visit Italy and France. She and Tim had planned a trip to Cornwall in 2020 that was sadly canceled due to the pandemic.

She was diagnosed with cancer in May 2023, just months after recovering from shattering her elbow in 2022. She kept working as long as she could even with terrible pain, and endured endless rounds of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, 30 consecutive days of radiation, surgery in January 2026, and faced every step with the toughness she'd carried since Montana.

Kim is survived by her mother, Mae Clawson; her brother, Dean Clawson; her son, Connor Stone; and her husband, Tim White. She was preceded in death by her father Gary Clawson.

A celebration of her life will be held at Lansdowne Pub in Highlands Ranch at a day and time TBA. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to The Anal Cancer Foundation (https://www.analcancerfoundation.org/), in memory of a disease that should not have taken her.