Warren, Ohio
Karen was born October 13, 1968 in Warren, Ohio, the firstborn daughter of Judith and Kenneth Wilkins, Sr. Everybody called her Snoop.
She was a majorette. She played the flute and earned first chair. She played shortstop at Burbank. She was in the National Honor Society, was named a Rhodes Scholar candidate, and — at seventeen, before anybody asked her to — she started her high school's first chapter of Teens Against Drunk Driving and Safe Rides.
That's who she was at seventeen. Looking out for people who hadn't asked for help.
She graduated from Warren Western Reserve in 1987.
The accountant
Karen valued education, growth and opportunity throughout her life. She always knew she wanted to be an accountant — she said it out loud as a girl and then spent her whole life being it.
University Hospitals, KeyBank, DHL, Valley of the Sun United Way in Arizona, and most recently ICBD Holding as a Senior Staff Accountant.
She was careful with other people's money. She was reckless with her own.
She'd give tomorrow's money away today. Hand her a pack of Lysol wipes and she'd act like you'd handed her gold.
She never sat still
Kayaking. Hiking. Kickboxing. Rowing. Cruising the Gulf.
Professional tennis, the WNBA, and the Steelers — loudly.
Travel, crocheting, Sudoku, and stories that reached past this world and imagined something bigger.
Her faith
Karen accepted Christ as a young girl and never let go of Him.
Her faith wasn't loud. It was immovable. It didn't perform and it didn't announce itself, and when everything else got taken away it was still standing there.
Near the end, chemotherapy left her immune system too compromised to sit in a sanctuary. So she logged on. Weekly Bible study over Zoom. Sunday morning worship over Zoom. She did not miss.
A building was never what she was there for.
Faith Over Fear
Two years, eight months
In her fifties, Karen was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer.
She fought it for two years and eight months.
There was surgery. There was chemotherapy. There were more therapies than we can list. And in every waiting room, in every infusion chair, in every Uber on the way to an appointment she shouldn't have had to take — she was the one encouraging somebody else.
She went to a cancer support group and brightened it.
Even after they took her breast, she smiled, and she said she was grateful.
People found it almost irritating. You'd look at her and think: how are you still like this?
She never answered that question. She just kept being the answer.
Triple-negative. It means the treatments that help many other patients are not options.
What triple-negative means →February 17, 2026
Karen A. Davis finished her earthly journey on Tuesday, February 17, 2026. She was 57.
She left her son, Brandon. Her parents, Judith and Rev. Dr. Kenneth Wilkins, Sr. Her sisters, Debra and Stephanie. Her brother, Kenny Jr. Two granddaughters. Two honorary daughters. A nephew, godchildren, cousins, nieces, nephews, and a very long list of people who were better because they knew her.
She touched every life she encountered, from Ohio to Arizona to Florida. She spent all of it telling other people they could be better, and she never once figured out that she was the best of us.
Some people leave a light that never fades.
Why Karen's Way exists
HER RACE IS FINISHED. OURS CONTINUES.
She had a way of loving people. A way of caring for her family. A way of living her faith. A way of showing strength when she had every reason not to. A way of helping somebody else while she was the one fighting.
We're not going to be able to replace her. We can keep doing things her way.
That's the whole idea.