Dr. Kenneth J. Goering

Long-time Gallatin Valley resident Dr. Kenneth J. Goering passed away Saturday, Nov. 26, 2010, exactly one month shy of his 97th birthday, from an arterial fibrillation induced stroke.

Ken was born in Sunnyvale, Calif., where his parents, Aster Elsa Augusta (Toepper) and Hans Georg Goering ran a feather cleaning business. Shortly after Ken's birth, the family moved back to Montana where Georg took a meat cutting job in Butte.

The following year Georg and his brother, Johann, opened the Big Timber Butcher Shop (which furnished much of the meat for the Chestnut boarding house). Ken's father sold his interest in the Big Timber shop to his brother in 1919, and the family moved to Hardin where he operated his own butcher shop.

Ken's parents got divorced while he was in the second grade, and he then lived with his aunt and uncle, Frieda and Alton Hobart, in Big Timber and later in Bozeman. Ken resided with his grandmother and step-grandfather, Albertina (Topel) and Robert Doney, on the place his grandfather, Heinrich Toepper, homesteaded south of Bozeman (Greenhills Ranch on Cottonwood Road) for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. Albertina and Robert's sons, Frank and Earl Doney, became Ken's brothers in a very real sense. Ken went to Anderson School during this period, either walking or riding horseback the 1.5 miles between the ranch and school.

A new chapter in Ken's life began in December 1928 when his mother bought the Marks' place on Middle Cottonwood Creek about nine miles north of Bozeman. Ken resided there with his mother and stepfather, Fred Adams, through high school and while earning his Bachelor of Science degree, majoring in chemistry, from Montana State College, which he completed in 1936.

In August that same year, he married Marjory N. Gieseker, who he had been dating for four years and whose father had moved to Bozeman in 1908 to teach soils and agronomy at MSC. Ken and Marge stayed at the ranch for the next year while he was working for the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station and while his mother and stepfather were building the original cabins at Lone Mountain Ranch and the Hyalite Scout Camp.

The couple moved to Pasadena the following year where Ken received his master's degree in biochemistry from the California Institute of Technology. Ken and Marge then moved to Ames, Iowa, where Ken completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Iowa State University in 1941. Subsequently, he went to work for Anheuser Busch in St Louis for about a year, and then back to ISU to teach chemistry.

In 1943, Ken received a "we want you" letter that was a bit different than what most folks were getting: he was politely requested to run an ethanol production facility in Omaha, Neb., and if he declined he would be drafted and would run an ethanol production facility in Omaha, Neb. The facility produced ultra pure ethanol for use in the production of synthetic rubber. During this employment, Ken and Marge's first child, Patricia, was born, followed two years later by a son, John. Following the war, Ken and Marge moved to Eagle Grove, Iowa, where Ken worked on a plant which produced mold bran, and it was there that their second son, Kenneth Don, was born.

Ken obtained a teaching job at Montana State College in 1949, and the family moved back to the Middle Cottonwood Creek place that Ken had previously purchased from his mother in 1944. During 1949 the family lived in the two-room log cabin while Ken built a new house on the place. Initially, the cabin had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing.

Ken worked for MSC/MSU for the next 35 years, teaching, doing research, and as dean of the graduate school. He did extensive research on the biochemistry of several cereal grains and received a number of patents and had a large number of published scientific journal articles. He served as associate editor of the American Association of Cereal Chemists from 1968 through 1971. Ken was also a pioneer in technology transfer to assist Montana farmers in new markets. Much of his later work was done in collaboration with barley breeder Bob Eslick working with waxy barley.

After coming to MSC, Ken quickly developed a close friendship with Dr. Ray Woodriff which led to a 25-year-long list of mutual family adventures - Jeeping, prospecting, camping, fishing and hunting. We would also be in serious remiss not to say Ken was an avid fisherman. From his first trip to a reservoir north of Big Timber with his father, when he was about 3 years old, until he was 95, and from South America to Alaska, it was his most favorite pastime.

Ken and Marge took a number of trips, including Alaska, Canada, Europe, Russia, Mongolia (both of these while the countries were still part of the Soviet Union), and several countries in South America during his later employment at MSU and following retirement.
Ken's wife of 67 years, Marjory, passed away in 2002.

Ken is survived by his three children, Patricia Y. deBedout (Doug) Chitwood, John D. Goering (Petrea Hofer), and Kenneth D. Goering (Maureen); 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

Ken was a furiously independent person, living completely on his own until having the stroke on Thanksgiving eve. He had a big smile on when showing his last driver's license with an expiration date of 2014. He remained active, swathing and baling 80 acres of hay at age 96, and he had a voracious appetite for reading. He lived his life on his own terms.

Ken's sage advice and considerable help will be sorely missed.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made to the Gallatin Valley Historical Society or to the Gallatin Valley Land Trust.

A memorial service for Ken will be held at 10 a.m. Friday, Dec. 3, at the Museum of the Rockies' Hager Auditorium.