(Jan. 26, 1957 – Dec. 13, 1986) In the 1960s and early ’70s, Kim Peyton set a standard for women’s swimmers in Oregon, first as a record-setting junior swimmer and then an Olympic Gold Medalist. Born in 1957, Peyton grew up in a family swim environment that included two sisters, Debra and Kelly, who would eventually win state titles in high school. Kelly continued to the University of Oregon team.
Kim began swimming for the Hood River, Oregon Swim Team the summer before first grade and two months later, moved to Portland where she joined the David Douglas Swim Team. She set three national records as a 9 and 10 year old while competing for the David Douglas Swim Team and later for the David Douglas High School Swim Team, which was in the midst of winning 14 consecutive state titles. At David Douglas, where she was undefeated in four years of high school competition, she won 14 state titles in freestyle events or as part of a freestyle or medley relay team. Kim Peyton established several state record times starting with the 200 freestyle in 1972, when the swim championships were held in fall. Peyton’s winning time, 1:53.16, lowered the state record by nearly three seconds. In 1975, after the championships were moved to winter, she lowered the record to 1:50.25, which stood until 1994.
Peyton, advanced to the international level in 1971 at the Pan American Games in Cali, Columbia. She won a gold medal in the 200-meter freestyle at age 14. She won four more gold medals – the 100- and 200-freestyle and 4×100 freestyle and medley relays, at the 1975 Pan Am Games in Mexico City.
Peyton was on the 1972 U.S. Olympic team as an alternate for the 4 x 100 relay team and she won a gold medal in the 4 x 100 freestyle relay at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Summer Games. She met her future husband, Olympic water polo team member Drew McDonald, while swimming for Stanford University. Peyton McDonald passed away when she was just 29 years old of an inoperable brain tumor.
Peyton was honored in 1975 with the Hayward High School Athlete Award and the Hayward Award for Oregon’s Best Athlete of the Year. She was inducted into the Oregon Sports Fall of Fame in 1989, three years after her death.
