Former DAHS president and board member Egon Bodtker of Junction City, Oregon, died June 18, 2024.

Egon and his parents, Arnold and Edith Bodtker, were founding members of the Danish American Heritage Society in 1977. His most recent stint on the board was 2007 to 2015. He was president 2008 to 2015, and editor of The Bridge 1988 to 1998. He was instrument in the decision to move DAHS to the Midwest from Oregon. He was board president of the Museum of Danish America (now Museum of Danish America) from 2001 to 2003.

After his father’s death, Egon and his family created an endowment to underwrite DAHS’s Bodtker Grants to scholars.

The following obituary was published July 10, 2024, in The Register-Guard of Eugene, Oregon.

Egon Bodtker died on June 18 surrounded by family singing songs, reciting poems, and telling stories. It was as wonderful as it was sad.

Egon was born in 1935 in Eugene to Arnold Bodtker and Edith Gravesen Bodtker when they lived in Junction City. He lived in McMinnville, Corvallis, and Portland as a boy, graduating from Cleveland High School.

He went to Grand View College in Des Moines, Iowa, for two years, Harvard for a year, a year at Askov Højskole in Denmark, then returned to the University of Oregon to finish his undergraduate degree in political science.

He married Diana Wright in 1959, got his master’s degree in international studies at the University of Oregon, then continued studies at Indiana University. They moved with their children through a short stint at the U.S. Information Agency in Washington, D.C., and several years teaching back at Grand View while Diana got her master’s degree.

He believed it was important for his children to learn another language, so the family moved to Denmark for a year of teaching back at Askov. They spent four months camping through western Europe in a Volkswagen camper van before finally returning to Oregon. In Salem he taught political science and was an administrator at Chemeketa Community College. He retired from Chemeketa in 1997.

Egon was always interested in learning about other people, and he traveled extensively. He went to Japan in support of visiting Japanese students at the college and with the Salem Sister City program. When he turned 50 he went to China for a summer to learn Chinese. He went to New Zealand and to the Faroe Islands to connect with family, and he and Diana traveled to the far north on an icebreaker to see what that part of the world was like. He went to Scotland because he loved traveling with the family. For every trip he kept a journal of the people he met and the adventures they had.

He was what Diana called a “professional Dane,” helping to start the Danish American Heritage Society, working on the board of the Danish Immigrant Museum, and supporting many groups that studied the lives of immigrants in America.

He also spent over 50 years very involved in the Salem Unitarian-Universalist church, finding close friends and like-minded spirits in that community. His several decades with the Salem Rotary Club led to friends and more travel, always working to support communities who turned out to be made up of new friends!

Throughout all of his adventures, he and Diana cultivated a big garden. When they moved into town in Salem the garden was smaller, but he was still making jams, liqueurs, and pestos for family and friends. His experiments were appreciated by all.

Two years ago Egon and Diana returned to Junction City to be closer to more family. Now we miss him. We all raise a glass to him and drink a “Skaal” to his final journey.