Katherine Corne was born and reared in Hendersonville, North Carolina. She graduated from BJC in 1939 as a speech major, having been a private student of, and assistant director with, Bob Jones Jr. In 1941, she married fellow alumnus Gilbert Stenholm. While serving on the BJC speech faculty and directing numerous plays and Vesper programs, she earned a master’s degree in speech at Northwestern University and completed most of the requirements for a PhD. When, in 1950, the Joneses asked her to create a film studio at BJU, she abandoned her doctoral work in speech to study film making at the University of Southern California. Stenholm became one of only a handful of female directors in the United States. During her career she produced seventy-two films of various types, including five feature-length religious costume dramas.