St George, Utah - Jan Alan Bagley, age 78, died from complications following surgery on September 4, 2024. Generally accepted to have been one of the kindest, gentlest and most empathetic men born in 1946, Jan leaves behind a legacy of caring and love that those who knew him will never forget.

Jan was a dedicated Baby Boomer and, having been born to Crystella and Durward "Dude" Bagley nine months and 18 days after WWII ended in Europe, he's an actual contender for the title of first member of his generation.

Jan graduated from Olympus High School in Salt Lake City in 1964, enrolled at the University of Utah, spent two years as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Brazilian South Mission, transferred to BYU but decided that school was insufferably lame, returning to the University of Utah where he earned his BA in English in 1971. Jan would also go on to study at the Wharton School's Graduate Sales Management School in 1987.

Jan felt that the one decent thing about BYU was meeting the lovely Anne Montgomery there. In 1968 they married. A few years later the two figured out that they'd actually briefly flirted on a single occasion as teenagers, though at the time, Jan dismissed Anne, three years his junior, as "too young."

His first job out of college was selling radio advertising at the then-legendarily rockin' KRSP. To say he was bitten by the radio bug doesn't quite tell the story. It's more like he was bitten by a radio-active spider, gaining advertising Spidey Sense in addition to other sales superpowers. He left KRSP for KALL, later being pulled away to work as a sales manager at KSL, which, being the radio station of BYU, was never going to work out. And indeed, a couple of years later Jan was recruited back to be general manager of KALL and sister station KODJ. Having decided that political talk was the future of AM radio, Jan held his nose and brought Rush Limbaugh to the Utah market. Format transitions are about the riskiest thing a radio station can attempt, and in 1991, at Anne's urging, Jan successfully managed KODJ's move from soft rock to oldies.

When KALL and KODJ were sold in 1992, Jan took a general sales manager role at smooth jazz powerhouse KBZN, where he and his team somehow convinced innumerable business owners to run ads in between Kenny G songs.

After retiring to St. George in 2018, Jan promptly came out of retirement and sold still more ads for the radio stations of Redrock Media group. In fact, he closed a deal he was particularly proud of the very day before he left us.

Despite his complicated relationship with BYU, Jan loved his religion and served in four bishoprics, three times as counselor and once as bishop. Fun fact: he was set apart as bishop by then, Elder Thomas S. Monson - something Jan conceded was "pretty cool."

Jan loved his country and was an intelligence officer in the Utah National Guard and Army Reserve, trained to conduct prisoner of war interrogations in Portuguese, attaining the rank of second lieutenant. Thankfully, neither Brazil nor Portugal got involved in the Vietnam War, allowing Jan to spend that conflict stateside.
Jan was very active. He greatly enjoyed hiking and summited many of Utah's highest peaks. He adored skiing with his kids and taught them all how to ski. He ran five full marathons, including the New York Marathon. He golfed his entire life and leveraged the benefits of that activity to power his continual exploration of the world, walking everywhere he could.

Jan was father to three children: Judd (Kristen), Lauren (Trajan), Lindsay (Yossof) and 11 grandchildren whom he spoiled with a vigor that bordered upon obsessive.

Our beloved husband, father, grandfather, friend and coworker Jan Bagley will be missed in ways that words struggle to convey, however several attempts will be made at a funeral on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. at the Red Cliffs Stake Center at 1285 North Bluff Street in St, George. A visitation will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the church. He would hope you'd come.

Jan will be laid to rest on Saturday, September 14, 2024 in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. A visitation will be held that day at the Larkin Mortuary at 260 East South Temple, from 1100 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. He would hope you'd come to that as well.

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