KALAMAZOO, MI -- Kalamazoo icon Anna Whitten has died.

Kalamazoo Valley Community College spokeswoman Linda Depta confirmed Whitten's death Friday afternoon, saying an email bearing the news had been sent to the KVCC community.

"Mrs. Whitten was a beloved member of the college, serving the students and the community with outstanding distinction and grace," KVCC officials said in a statement late Friday. "She will be greatly missed."

Whitten joined the Kalamazoo Valley Community College Board of Directors in 1968 and was still serving as the board secretary at the time of her death, Depta said. She also still served as an advisory committee member with the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. KVCC's Anna Whitten Hall was named after Whitten in 2005 in honor of her years of service.

Whitten had been living at Friendship Village Senior Living Community, Depta said.

Whitten moved to Kalamazoo in 1950 from Port Huron and has been described as a tireless and quiet-spoken champion for those in need -- working in the arenas of education, civil rights, health care, hunger and rights for the incarcerated.

"Mrs. Anna Whitten was one of the most caring and loving people I have ever had the pleasure of calling a friend and a mentor," Kalamazoo Mayor Bobby Hopewell said Friday. "She was always working to improve the lives of our children and our community. She will be greatly missed."

Education was a longstanding cause of Mrs. Whitten, KVCC officials said. In 2001 she wrote, "Being a product of a community college provides me with knowledge of why it is important to provide higher education to students who may not be in a position to attend a 4 year institution."

Whitten has been described as a supporter of the Douglass Community Center, and has worked with nonprofit groups including the Ecumenical Senior Center, the Family Health Center, Kalamazoo Loaves & Fishes, the Kalamazoo Ladies Library Association and LIFT. Whitten was one of the driving forces behind naming Kalamazoo's Martin Luther King Jr. Park after the slain civil rights leader in 1987.

"First of all, she is a community jewel," Moses Walker, former president and chief executive officer of the Family Health Center, which Whitten helped get started in 1971, said in a 2013 Kalamazoo Gazette interview. "She has been out there on the firing line for a long time. Her style was not an aggressive, in-your-face kind of style. But she was always there. She believed in right and she stood up for right."

Whitten received numerous accolades for her community service over the years, including the 2013 Red Rose Award from the Rotary Club of Kalamazoo and the YWCA Women of Achievement Award in 1999. That same year, the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners named her an official "county treasure."

In a 2013 interview, KVCC President Marilyn Schlack said her admiration for Whitten's energy and grace has grown over the years.

"She has had a hard life. She's managed all of her life with grace. She manages her disagreements with grace," Schlack said.

Among the programs at KVCC Whitten championed were Focus, which, in cooperation with WMU, helps KVCC students transition to a four-year university, as well as Brother-2-Brother, which helps African-American men work toward graduation. Keeping tuition costs as affordable as possible has also been one of Whitten's priorities.

Whitten worked for civil rights since at least the early 1950s, when she quietly but persistently integrated her husband's and uncle's downtown barbershop. She was active behind the scenes as an NAACP member, for example, during the Van Avery Drug Store protest in Kalamazoo in 1963, which sparked after the store refused an application from an African-American teenager.

"Anna Whitten was more than a legend in Southwest Michigan," said Congressman Fred Upton, who worked with Whitten for decades. "She had the biggest heart and passion for so many in our community -- particularly the most vulnerable. She demanded the very best and held all of us accountable. We, indeed, have all lost a friend."