Karen McBeth Bergstein, daughter-in-law of Stan and June Bergstein, died Saturday, Sept. 3, after a long battle with bone cancer.

A scholar and athlete, Karen held a teaching degree from California State College, with credentials in English and mathematics, and a Master’s in organizational psychology and management from Antioch West in Seattle. A spectacular skier all her life, she captained the Washington State University team during her college years there.

She received Washington’s Vision Award, honoring the state’s top employee, after developing the Learning Life Center, which created ground-breaking programs that became national models for helping troubled youth just a step away from prison.

As a teenager, she hiked from Kabul in Afghanistan, across Iran, Iraq and Turkey to Amsterdam. She married Al Bergstein in 1984, and delivered their son Isaac herself, in an underwater bathtub birth at home, without midwife or doctor, in 1985. A sailor, fly fisherwoman, hiker and camper, she loved the outdoors, and had natural mechanical ability as well. An admirer of Daoism, she spent two summers meditating at a Shaolin monastery in China.