Karen Coe ran marathons, was a nurse practitioner, writer and photographer.
“She could do anything she wanted to do,” said Randy Pench of Sacramento, a longtime friend.
Coe died of brain cancer April 25. She was 57.
She had lived a year after the diagnosis.
A service will be held later.
Coe was “an athlete through and through” said Pench, a photographer at the Sacramento Bee newspaper. But she also was “a great listener, kind and compassionate. We have lost a great soul,” he said.
Coe’s interest in athletics started early, said her sister, Lynne Coe-Gysel of Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif.
“I can remember playing with dolls, and I’d look out the window and see Karen hanging from a tree.”
Coe worked as a nurse practitioner at the Hospice of St. John in Lakewood and later for the Denver Veterans Affairs Hospital. “She was most proud of her work caring for patients,” said her husband, Mark Ziegenbein, of Lakewood.
Before that, she was a journalist in California, rode a tandem bicycle from Sacramento to New York City, ran marathons and was a professional photographer.
She was on the staff at Colorado Homes and Lifestyles and helped start a spin-off publication, Mountain Living, her husband said.
“She always wanted to learn as much as she could and give back as much as she could,” said her sister. “She was honest, forthright and funny and had a real zest for life.”
Karen Coe was born in Syracuse, N.Y., on Aug. 23, 1951, and graduated from St. John the Baptist Academy (high school) in Syracuse. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Le Moyne College in Syracuse.
She later earned degrees at Denver’s Regis University and the University of Colorado.
She took journalism courses and got a job writing for a neighborhood section of the Sacramento Bee. She later was editor of Sacramento Magazine.
She married Ziegenbein on May 5, 1990.
In addition to her husband and sister, she is survived by her brother, Tom Coe of Bellingham, Wash.; and her stepdaughter, Cynthia Baker of Santa Cruz, Calif.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
