The following was sent by Robin Barber, a high school friend of Kari’s.
Karl Walter Prager, Oct 21, 1947 – November 14th, 2010
The quotes in italics are Kari’s own words from an autobiographical letter written in 2010. The full text can be found on the FaceBook page created in Kari’s memory.
Kari was born in the Sun Valley, Idaho, ski lodge to Walter and Eleanor Prager. His father was a Swiss mountaineer, world downhill ski champion in 1932 and 1936, Dartmouth College ski coach, and World War II veteran of the 10th Mountain division. His mother was a sculptor and artist.
Kari passed away unexpectedly at home, in his sleep, on November 14, 2010 at the age of 63, following a respiratory illness.
Kari was raised in Norwich, “…growing up in Vermont, getting up in the morning with a foot of fresh powdery snow on the ground, skipping school and going skiing usually with my mom, because my dad was the ski coach at Dartmouth for twenty years and was always busy training with the team… the best thing in the world was skiing! I started when I was old enough to sort of walk around the front yard with these little tiny ‘skis’ on, and by the time I was five or six I was getting pretty good.” He attended The Putney School, class of 1965, where he won two state cross country ski championships, and the Eastern Preparatory School championship. “…the proudest moments in my life. For a kid who grew up doing nothing but read books and shoot a .22, who could no more play football or baseball with any skill whatsoever than fly to the moon, these races were the first, and the last time I beat all the big athletes … my ski coach was John Caldwell, a Dartmouth Alumnus, and an Olympian, who had been coached by my dad. So he was extra tough on me. … In fact, almost everything important that I learned in school I learned on the ski team or in the school chorus, where I learned to love the old composers like Bach and Mozart, a love that I still take pleasure in today.”
He graduated with honors from Dartmouth College in 1969 in anthropology and graphic arts. “Now what was expected of me by my parents, what they had prepared me for was to go to grad school, get a doctorate and go into academics, be a professor or researcher. I never really questioned it. I didn’t really know what I wanted, but I felt inside like it had to be real, a skill like designing, illustrating and printing, to produce a book; or maybe go the other way and get really good at repairing a motorcycle.”
Kari gave up a Harvard fellowship to pursue his passion for motorcycling. In 1973, he and his future wife Gail moved to Berkeley. For 29 years, he and Gail have owned a successful BMW motorcycle dealership, first in San Francisco, then in Mountain View. He and Gail married in 1978 and have lived in Mountain View since 1981.
I have been in the motorcycle business all my life, and loved it; stayed married to the same woman and loved her the whole time.
Kari is survived by his wife Gail Reed Prager, Putney ’68; daughters Kristin Prager and Maya Nolan, son-in-law Seamus Nolan; and a large community of family and friends.
Donations can be made in his honor to CHAC (Community Health Awareness Council) PO Box 335, MV, CA 94042.
These classmate obituary pages are our attempt to honor and remember classmates who have passed away. We have attempted to find and share a public obituary and have added some photos and classmate comments. In some cases we have not been able to find an obituary. If you know of an obituary where one is missing, please let us know. If you have a remembrance you think is important to share, please let us know. Comments can be submitted through the Contact Us form on this web site.