Kenneth Alan Pratt

Kenneth Alan Pratt of Mill Valley passed away on June 4, 2013 in San Francisco. He is survived by his loving wife, Christina Opel, his daughters Sara, Susan and Nancy from his previous marriage to Joanne Martell, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His optimistic, dancing spirit, quick wit and kind heart will be greatly missed. Born in 1927 to Willis and Joy (Harris) Pratt in Oakland, he deeply loved California, building trails in the Sierras as a teenager and later working as a naturalist for the Park Service. He attended Yale for one year but returned to the Bay Area to graduate from Stanford University in 1949. He taught school in Ecuador for a year then returned to the States, and settled into life in Mill Valley; raising a family, playing lots of tennis, and working as a feature writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Ken wrote and produced a popular California travel series, "Weekend Adventure Drives" distributed weekly at Union 76 gas stations. He walked clear across California with his horse, writing a feature for the Oakland Tribune, in association with an exhibition, "From the Bay to Bodie", at the Oakland Museum. In 1978, he was admitted to the California Bar Association, served as president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, and practiced law for the rest of his life. An open celebration of Ken's life will be held in Old Mill Park, Mill Valley (by the library) beginning at 2:00 p.m. on August 4, 2013. Donations in his memory may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center or to Hospice by the Bay.