Cathryn Murray has been recognized by President Clinton, Prince Rainier of Monaco and Teen magazine, but her fellow students at Mt. Diablo High School here, where the 18-year-old is a senior, don’t even know about the teenage empire she has built.
As founder and sole employee of the Global Teen Club, Murray corresponds with hundreds of youngsters around the world, publishing their columns and stories in a monthly newsletter she alone produces and ships out to the 500 club members.
The teenage members, from every state in the United States and a dozen countries write about such topics as fashion, entertainment, teenage crushes AIDS, child abuse, foreign affairs and suicide.
Almost hiding in a soft couch in the Walnut Creek apartment she shares with her disabled mother, Murray told how the newsletter was born within the crime and violence of the Pittsburg, Calif., projects in which she grew up:
“We lived in the ‘hood. I couldn’t go outside and play, so I brought the whole world inside my bedroom.”
Nadine Martin, 66, a Pittsburg resident who proofreads each newsletter before it goes to press, said: “She was very shy and timid, and it was safe to reach out through the mail and make friends. It just grew from here.”
By 1989, Murray was writing more than 100 letters a month and had built up a network of friends from all over the globe. Still too shy to speak out at school, Murray sought to express herself by submitting poems, articles and stories to magazines throughout the nation. But after too many rejection notices, Murray decided to create her own forum for fellow youngsters, the Global Teen Club.
At first she printed her newsletter by hand, drawing the pictures, photocopying the issues and sending them to friends.
Reaching out through foreign embassies, Murray recruited more teenagers who had nowhere else to share their ideas and feelings.
“What she has found is a whole world of `Cathy’s’ out there, people who will never talk out but can express themselves on paper,” said Murray’s mother, Hallie-Ruth.
Soon the newsletter was filled with columns, stories and art from around the world, and Murray sought a way to raise money for a typewriter.
Looking at the piles of extra Halloween candy she had, Murray decided to sell it to neighborhood children. The first day she made $3; but when she started buying candy in bulk and lugging it to school to sell, she brought in almost $20 a day, enough to buy a typewriter.
Because many club members come from low-income families and can’t afford the $8 six-month membership fee, she subsidizes the newsletter by cleaning office buildings every weekend.
She still hasn’t had the nerve to speak out in school about the Global Teen Club, but Murray found the words to write to President Clinton. An April 1993 letter from him commending her on her efforts is proudly displayed in her scrapbook.
Since being chosen as a finalist in Noxzema’s 1992 Extraordinary Teen contest, Murray has received as many as 30 letters on some days, including one from Prince Rainier of Monaco inviting her to a gala event, in appreciation for the article she wrote on Princess Grace in the newsletter.
Murray likes to receive letters from dignitaries, but the letters from other teenagers really make her sacrifices worth it, she said.
Her commitment to the newsletter has kept her from taking part in many normal teenage activities, but she said she doesn’t regret it.
“I can’t get all the good things from hanging out at the mall,” said Murray, showing off her newly printed Global Teen Club International T-shirt.
“When I see a letter come in, it just makes me happy.”
