Kara Lee Miller

1931 - 2021

Kara Lee Miller
February 18, 1931 - February 28, 2021
San Diego
Kara Lee Miller1931-2021Kara Lee Miller, age 90 years, died on February 28, 2021 at the Wellmore Assisted Living Facility in Lexington, South Carolina, after a long illness. Kara Lee was poised and funny; she loved to socialize with family and friends, and to harmonize in a clear, sweet alto. She enjoyed contract bridge, board games, word-puzzles, and ballroom dancingshe and her husband John could turn an elegant foxtrot. Her gift for comedy, mimicry, and storytelling endeared her to her children and friends; she loved to read aloud, and did the best "Piglet" voice any of us ever heard.Born Kara Lee Sowder on February 18, 1931, she grew up in Arkansas and Oklahoma, spending time with her father, Hugh Sowder, and with her mother and step-father, Bonnie and Clyde Lee. She was a curious and independent child, and an avid reader. She met John Y. Miller, the love of her life, in 1950 on the set of a college drama production of George F. Kaufman's comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner; they married in Texarkana on May 23, 1950, and relocated to San Diego in 1955.For the next twenty years, Kara Lee was an active homemaker, serving as a Cub Scout Den Mother, Girl Scout Troop Leader, and PTA President. In 1975 she returned to the workplace as a Manager of Student Accounts at the then-fledgling National University. Over the next decade she rose through the ranks, becoming Director of Academic Services in 1985; meanwhile she also attended classes at NU, receiving her B.B.A. summa cum laude in 1977, her M.B.A. with distinction in 1979, and her J.D. from the National University School of Law in 1985. In December of that year, she became a Member of the State Bar of California.Kara Lee was a widely admired member of the academic and business community in San Diego. In 1986 she was accepted into the Mission Valley East chapter of Rotary International as the first female Rotarian in the county, and was quoted in The San Diego Union saying her membership had been "a very positive experience . . . I have been accepted as a member just like one of the guys" (5/5/1987). Upon her retirement from National University in 2007, her contributions were celebrated at a banquet hosted by the university president.Kara Lee was predeceased in 2003 by her husband of 53 years, John Ydstie Miller, and is survived by their three children, David Lee Miller, Nita Ellen Boyce, and Jeanette Michelle Mahnke, along with nine grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren, and a sister, Terri Lynn Watts. Her life will be celebrated, and her ashes given to the Pacific Ocean, on September 12, 2021.