Obituary
John and La Rae Hagen
A celebration of life for John and his wife La Rae Hagen will be held on Saturday, September 16th, 2023 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm at The Gathering Place, 133 Mason Street, Onalaska. Coulee Region Cremation Group is assisting the family.
To view their triibute video click here
Mr. Hagen was among my favorite teachers at Onalaska High School. He was interesting, engaging, a wonderful storyteller and quite frankly, very entertaining. For me, his science courses served as a good basis for other courses taken after high school, including those in parks and recreation and even tourism. I will never forget his Earth Science class fieldtrip in the spring of 1974. We hiked a bluff, explored a cave and ate our lunches in the woods. One could tell right away that Mr. Hagen loved the out-of-doors. I feel very blessed that I had this Minnesota born and raised man as a teacher.
Mr. Hagen was a great teacher. He was also the advisor for the photography group of which I was a member at OHS. I learned a lot from him, although I had great difficulty with Chemistry. I also interviewed him for the school newspaper about his airboat and was privileged to be taken for a ride on it as part of the interview.
He was also a humanitarian – when the boys in my class balanced my Volkswagon bug on the top of a snow bank, he heard me holloring at them and came out of the school and made them take it down so I could go home after school.
I visited him a few times after high school (usually in his workshop) and he was always glad to see former students.