Jeffrey Hagen, 60

Jeffrey Hagen, 60, of Dent, Minn., passed away Feb. 26, 2026, in St Cloud, Minn., with his family at his side, after a courageous three-year battle with colon cancer.
But he crammed a whole lot of living into those 60 years.
Jeffrey Wayne Hagen was born April 19, 1965, at Fairview Hospital in Minneapolis, Minn., to Dwight and Elaine (Westberg) Hagen. In 1967, they moved to Kennedy Minn., where Jeff would grow up and attend school. He starred in football, basketball and baseball for his beloved Kennedy High School Rockets, graduating from there in 1983.
He went to college and graduated from Minot State University in Minot, N.D., where he would play wide receiver for the football team for several years in the mid-1980s, finding what would become many lifelong friends, and eventually met his first wife, Robin Wheeler. They were married in 1988 in Dickinson, N.D., and they had two sons: Parker Jeffrey Hagen on Jan 25, 1989; and Blake James Hagen, on July 2, 1991. They would divorce after 10 years of marriage.
He married Alycia Reich on March 18, 2005, in Granite Falls, Wash., and they welcomed a daughter, Emma Mabel Hagen, on Sept. 12, 2006. They divorced in 2010 and Jeff and Kristi Kmit married in 2011, eventually divorced in 2018. Still, he would ultimately remain close with Robin, Alycia and Kristi until his death.
His children were his pride and joy, but Jeff also found great joy and satisfaction in working with children with disabilities, a career that spanned more than 30 years and took him from Texas to Alaska and countless places in between.
Jeff was also an avid outdoorsman and sportsman for his entire life. He enjoyed playing and following most sports (football, baseball, basketball, golf…) and was a huge Minnesota sports fan: He bled purple for the Vikings and closely followed the Twins and Timberwolves as well as the University of Minnesota Gophers football and basketball teams.
While Jeff traveled around the country as a special education teacher (and well beyond there – he also worked in Japan for about a year), he long dreamed of building a cabin on the lake in his home state of Minnesota. He realized that dream several years ago and lived in that cabin until just months before his death. He was an avid fisherman, and was especially in his glory in Alaska, where he worked on and off for more than a decade, enjoying a fishing scene that most anglers could only dream about.
Jeffrey is survived by: his mother, Elaine M Hagen; father, Dwight R. Hagen; brothers, James (Heather) Hagen and Jared (Monique) Hagen; sons, Parker Hagen and Blake Hagen; daughter, Emma Hagen; and numerous aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins, stepchildren and step-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents.
A celebration of life is expected sometime this summer at a yet-to-be-determined location.