Harlan William Harkness

Harlan Harkness passed away on August 28, 2026, after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He will be lovingly remembered as a kind, gentle soul who believed in maintaining a positive attitude.

Harlan was born in Napa, CA. Eventually, his family moved to San Francisco, where he attended kindergarten through high school. Starting in his youth, Harlan embraced his family’s passion for sailing and all things that were water related. He participated in competitive swimming in high school and college; and also started playing water polo while attending San Francisco State University. After graduating Cum Laude from San Francisco State, he earned a master's degree at Stanford University in 1963.

Harlan spent 5 months in the US Army reserve in 1968. He followed up this service with doing shorter periods of service in the summer, spread over 5 years.

Upon graduating from Stanford, he spent his entire 39 year career teaching at the Palo Alto Unified School district. He primarily taught high school PE, but he also taught Business Law and Adaptive PE. He coached soccer, swimming and girl’s softball. But for Harlan, teaching Adaptive PE was his first love. Working in this area meant he taught students ranging in age from Kindergarten through 21 years old.

Another love of Harlan’s was water polo. He coached water polo for years at Palo Alto High School. Before retiring, he started refereeing water polo in the Peninsula area south of San Francisco; and continued refereeing in northern and southern CA after retiring.

Starting in 1991, Harlan and his wife, Kathy, shared their love of playing tennis, golf and traveling. Life was good, and we felt blessed to have found one another and to be able to share a wonderful life together.

Harlan is survived by his daughter, Catherine.

Harlan requested that there be no funeral or memorial service held.

Goodbye is not forever; farewell is not the end. It simply means I’ll miss you until we meet again.

See you on the other side, Harlan.

All my love-your wife, Kathy.

Funeral Arrangements have been entrusted to McAlister-Smith of Mount Pleasant located at 1520 Rifle Range Rd., Mount Pleasant, SC 29464.