Siegfried A. Vogt

Siegfried Vogt, 71, died June 5, 2010, surrounded by family in his home in rural northern Idaho, near Potlatch, from complications of eye cancer. He was a kind, jovial and helpful man, loved by many and missed dearly by those who knew him. A celebration of life is planned for 3 p.m. Friday, June 11th in Faraday Hall at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratory Event Center in Pullman, Wa. You may post your messages or memories of Sieg beneath the life history below.

Born January 8, 1939 in Markt-Oberdorf, Bavaria, Vogt was raised in a historic flour and sawmill in Böhmischbruck, Oberpfalz. At age 4, he was blinded in his left eye when he accidentally cut himself with a pocket knife. That eye would later develop a rare form of eye cancer that took his life after a courageous three-year battle.

In his youth, he attended Augustiner seminary school and studied humanities, Latin and Greek. He left by steamship in 1956, inspired by stories told by his brother, who had attended high school for one year in Mossy Rock, Wa., as one of Germany’s first post World War II exchange students. He landed in Halifax and then New York, where his sponsor was waiting. On their remote ranch near Saulkum, Washington, he immediately taught him hunting and outdoor skills. Soonafter, he also began taking English and other classes at Centralia Junior College. In May 1957 he joined a hot shot fire crew to earn money for college. In the fall, he enrolled at Oregon State University and majored in Forestry and Social Science, graduating four years later. From 1957 to 1961, he worked as a U.S. Forest Service timber cruiser at Naches Ranger Station near Yakima, WA, where he also once played an extra in the Gary Cooper movie “The Hanging Tree,” filmed nearby. He then surveyed veteran’s allotments for the Department of Agriculture out of Pasco, WA. He later moved to Colfax, WA, to survey property along the steep Snake River breaks.

In August 1962 he met Mabel Lovel, a University of Idaho student from Moscow. A year later, the two went abroad, and on September 28, 1963 were married in Vogt’s hometown in Bavaria. They then moved to Vienna, where he studied international relations at the University of Vienna, earning his diplom in 1964, while she went to translator’s school. They returned to Idaho in 1964 where he pursued a master’s degree in Political Science, which he completed 1965. In 1967, he began pursuing his Ph.D. in Political Science, taught comparative and European politics at WSU, and was active in the local anti-war and civil rights movements. In 1968, he joined the Industrial Workers of the World, founded a local chapter and remained a member for many years. He later compiled an extensive bibliography on the IWW and was credited for assistance on the documentary film “The Wobblies,” which won the New York Film Festival in 1981.

In 1970, the couple bought property north of Potlatch, Idaho, and worked two summers as fire lookouts on Frost Peak out of the Kingston Ranger Station. Their daughters were born in 1971 and 1977, respectively. In 1972 he began working as professor and librarian at WSU, and eventually became a tenured full professor. Over his 30-year career he defended library budgets, fought censorship and oversaw the purchase of more than 600,000 volumes for Holland Library, greatly helping expand book holdings, particularly in the social sciences, where he was head of collection development from 1972 to 1991. He was credited with strengthening collections in sociology, American History, Modern European History and the Labor movement. He also secured a number of important gift collections. In 1988, he was named “library superstar” by the College and Research Libraries academic journal. In the nomination letter, one professor recalled his determination to get to the bottom of a particularly difficult research question that no-one could resolve. He eventually contacted the professor with the answer, six years after the original request. He served for years as the WSU representative to the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, a consortium of 700 academic institutions based at the University of Michigan. In 1999, he was awarded the ICPSR William H. Flanigan Award for Distinguished Service. He was passionate about books at work and at home, where he stayed abreast of the latest news on the internet, read four newspapers a day and a variety of other books and reading material.

An avid outdoorsman, he loved geography and maps. He enjoyed gardening, hunting mushrooms, wildlife watching and wood gathering on the land around his home. He was a longtime member of the Latah County Sheriff's Search and Rescue Vehicle Posse. He loved animals, especially cats. In his free time, he also cherished his bi-weekly “hydrology meetings” with some of his best friends at Rico’s in Pullman.

Passionate about old-time fiddle and bluegrass music, he often accompanied his wife, family and friends on blues harmonica or accordion. He and Mabel shared a close-knit community of musician friends whom they would see at the hundreds of national and regional fiddle contests and festivals they attended. He was proud of Mabel’s accomplishments, as well as those of his two daughters, Andrea Vogt, a journalist, and Anna Vowels, an attorney.