Going at it ‘with all his heart’

Over his 26 years at Portland State, Joseph Kohut’s spark made him a memorable professor and friend for his students and colleagues alike.

This is especially true of the library emeritus professor’s unflappable zest for paleontology, especially for conodonts-fossils that come from an extinct group of fish-like animals.

When not working as a science librarian in the Branford P. Millar Library, Kohut would often act as a stand-in professor for his friends and colleagues in the geology department when they were on sabbatical–just one of many memories the library emeritus professor left after his death last month.

“He would come over [to teach a class] and the students would always come out of there kind of shaking their head over how anyone could be that excited over conodonts,” said PSU geology professor Michael Cummings. “He really did put on a show.”

Kohut, 70, died Oct. 10 after suffering head injuries sustained while hiking a trail at Triple Falls, part of the Columbia Gorge, according to a press release from the PSU Communications office. A memorial service followed on Oct. 18 for family and friends.

When he was not working in the library, Kohut taught his own class in the geology department, said Richard Thoms, a retired PSU geology emeritus professor and friend.

Thoms became friends with Kohut when the librarian came to Portland State in 1971. Kohut had previously received his doctorate in geology at Ohio State University and spent several years working for the U.S. Geological Survey as a bibliographic researcher before arriving at PSU.

“Their loss was our gain,” Thoms said.

Kohut’s class was on geological bibliographies, a subject that allowed him to further express his love of paleontology with his students.

“They always liked his lecture,” Cummings said, again referring to Kohut’s conodons lesson. “They were always amazed at his passion for it.”

Kohut also had a great love for scientific research, Thoms said.

“We used to tell people, ‘If Joe can’t find it for you, it hasn’t been published yet,'” Thoms said.

During his tenure at PSU, Kohut developed a program to design a map of the Brandford P. Millar library, making it easier for researchers to locate research materials.

Kohut’s ability to build such an impressive volume of scientific resources before the advent of the Internet, and at times doing so while facing a lean departmental budget, are accomplishments easily taken for granted, said Michael Cummings, another professor in the geology department.

“There are a lot of people that work at Portland State whose contributions are not as visible, but without them it’s not a university,” said Cummings, who knew Kohut since the spring of 1979.

Kohut made great strides in his field, Cummings said.

One of his greatest accomplishments at PSU came in “being able to advance the research agenda of the institution,” Cummings said.

“The roots are back in those times and he played an important role in that,” he said.

Robert Lockerby, another retired emeritus professor, also knew Kohut since he began working at the university. The man was brilliant, he said.

“He was one of the smartest people I ever knew,” he said.

When Kohut was not researching or spending time in the classroom, he loved spending time outdoors, Thoms said. The two would often go skiing and hiking with his friend together, he said.

Thoms said once he and Kohut found a man dead of a heart attack on a trail during a ski trip. “He said the man’s eyes were wide open and looking up to the sky, and Joe said to me, ‘when it’s my time to go, I hope that’s the way I go.’ In a way he got his wish. He died doing what he loved.”

In his later years, Kohut also took up dancing, particularly Tango. In honor of his love of dance, there was Tango dancing at Kohut’s memorial Oct. 18, said Cummings.

Cummings said he and Kohut had become very close over the years. In 1992, Kohut lost his older son, Joe Jr., in a tragic drowning accident just after he graduated from college. Cummings also lost a family member around the same time–a nephew. “There was a kind of grieving together,” he said.

For all of his accomplishments, however, those who knew him said Kohut would be most remembered for his joie de vie.

“He was just a very neat person,” Cummings said. “He wasn’t a neutral person … he lived life with passion.”

“Whatever he did,” he said of Kohut, who is survived by his son, Anton, and two grandchildren, “he went at it with all his heart.”