Karen Wolf Jarnagin

Karen Wolf was born on March 2, 1968, on Long Island, where she took dance, played basketball, and waited tables at the country club. In high school she loved Madonna, rocked an ‘80s perm with poofy bangs, and gave up piano when she decided she wanted long rock-star nails more than she wanted to play the piano. She dated boys who loved Metallica and dressed like KISS.

She studied journalism at the University of Delaware and landed her first job at the Northwest Florida Daily News in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. As a beat reporter covering cops and courts, she carried a police scanner in her purse, and taught her teenage intern how to read the police blotter, write a lede, and do a Jell-O shot.

Part of her prowess as a reporter hinged on her ability to disarm sources with her curiosity, megawatt smile, and witty one-liners delivered with a Long Island accent and punctuated with a shrug and an eye-roll.

“We were so lucky,” she wrote to a newsroom colleague years later, recalling “the cigarette smoke, the old timers nipping whiskey out of flasks in their file cabinets, the sound of the police scanner, the shit talking, the drinks after election night. All so romantic and wonderful.”

Always one to celebrate others, she persuaded the newsroom staff to vote for a standout story or photo, a weekly award they named in her honor: The Wolfies. “There was never a question what we’d call it,” recalls her editor at the time. “Who wouldn’t want an award named after someone so talented?” When Karen turned 26, she threw a “Blue Party” to mourn the fact that she was now closer to 30 than to 20. We toasted her with blue Jell-O shots.

By then she was dating Dave “Doc” Jarnagin, the coolest DJ in town, whose DJ tag on 99 Rock was, “The Doctor is IN! Please remove your clothes… he’ll be with you in a moment.” (It was the ‘90s. We could still say shit like that.) An “eyes guy,” he fell for eyes the color of a glacier lake and the sound of her laugh.

Doc loved making her laugh, and no one could make Karen laugh like Doc. Her ab-building, tear-jerking cackle could infect the room with a case of the giggles. One of Karen’s most endearing qualities was the ability to laugh at herself, even when people were laughing at her, not with her. She loved to laugh—even if it came at her expense.

Doc proposed in the newsroom, in a rented tux, with an armful of red roses and a diamond ring that made her fan her face. A year later, they married on Okaloosa Island. After the reception, they snuck off to Fudpuckers for a beer, then ditched the Ramada for another hotel when they realized the groom’s parents were in the room directly below the honeymoon suite.

Doc’s booming voice and radio career took them all over the country: Salt Lake City, Utah; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Fort Collins, Colorado. Everywhere she went, people adored her. Who was her best friend? “Aw,” Doc says. “That’s like asking an alcoholic, ‘What’s your favorite beer?’”

Karen loved being a mom to Reagan and Ryan, walking them to school, shuttling them to swimming and basketball practice, and posing them with a stuffed bunny for a portrait every Easter. She enriched their vocabulary with colorful words and one-liners from The Simpsons and Will Ferrell movies.

When Reagan and Ryan were grown, Karen took a “temporary” part-time job at Macy’s, not planning to grow into a full-time manager, but she was so good with people, she could not help it. Later, she became a manager at Target, where she emulated SNL’s Target Lady, “on the clock and ready to rock!” She charmed customers with her personality but showed shoplifters no mercy.

In 2021, Karen realized a dream: Seeing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person. After escorting a giant Pillsbury Doughboy balloon down 7th Avenue, she posed with a friend for a photo, flinging her arms wide. By chance, her left hand underscored two words on the billboard behind her: Live life.

She booked a trapeze lesson in 2024, proving at 57 that it’s never too late. A few weeks before the lesson, she was diagnosed with liver and pancreatic cancer. She rebooked for September, after her final chemo treatment. “It was as thrilling and fun as I imagined,” she posted on Facebook, bald and beaming. “I wasn’t quite able to get my legs up on the bar and swing upside down, but I’ll still call today a win!”

She loved lavender bubble baths, the Indigo Girls, the Bengals, Dairy Queen, and her rescue lab, Steve. She loved Vegas but didn’t gamble. She wore a T-shirt that read, “Don’t make me use my Karen voice!” and sang Journey songs slightly off key, holding onto the feeling but forgetting the words: “Don’t stop believing… Na-na-na-na-naaaa-nana-naa-aa-a!”

Karen saw her battle with cancer as a winner-takes-all chess match. One year after her diagnosis, she described it with the storytelling craft of a great journalist:

"Cancer is a wily opponent. It lulls you into believing you have the advantage, then suddenly pulls a fast one and decides that no, you do not. So you rethink your strategy. And plan your next move, and the move after that, in hopes that you can buy a little more time while this enemy regroups.

In the best-case scenario, your next moves are strong enough to beat the cells into submission. But in many others, you’re basically just finding ways to temporarily outsmart the disease. Because this thing, cancer, is wickedly smart. It figures out what’s trying to kill it, and changes. It’s the ultimate game of cat and mouse.

Cancer, we are coming for you, again. Your move."

When cancer called checkmate, when Karen no longer had the energy to write her own Facebook posts, she insisted Doc include an element of levity in every update. Unflinchingly optimistic, she refused to believe she was really that sick. Two days before she died, she told Doc she couldn’t wait to get home and get on with their life. “Denial and compartmentalization are my BFFs,” she joked.

In her last hours, she was surrounded by family and friends at a hospice care center where a guitar player strummed softly in the background. She took her last breath after an acoustic version of Madonna’s “Material Girl.” That would have made her laugh.

Karen is survived by her husband, David “Doc” Jarnagin, daughter Reagan, son Ryan, and by her mother Sue Wolf, as well as her beloved dog Steve. She is preceded in death by her father, Thompson Wolf.

A celebration of life and reception will begin at 3 p.m. on Saturday, January 3, 2026, at First Presbyterian Church, 531 S. College Ave., in Fort Collins, Colorado. Please wear fun colors (no black, per Karen’s request) and share a funny story about Karen. Remote viewing of the celebration will be available on zoom.

Karen didn't want flowers. Instead, she requested donations to those who had helped her along the way. Please consider a contribution in her memory to Pathways Hospice or Safe Harbor Lab Rescue. Treasured memories of Karen and words of condolence for her family are welcome at resthavencolorado.com.