Norman Leroy Krogstad

1922 - 2004

Norman Krogstad was an accomplished and versatile musician who directed instrumental groups and choirs in Seventh-day Adventist schools at all levels for over twenty years. He inspired students and colleagues with both his high standards and his contagious, enthusiastic approach to life and the making of music.

Norman was born in Elk Horn, Iowa, on March 17, 1922, one of five children and the youngest of four sons of Edwin Adolph and Lenora Caroline Peterson Krogstad. His childhood was spent in a small community of less than a thousand, surrounded by open rolling countryside. His father was an interior decorator and auctioneer and his mother was a seamstress. From his earliest years, he was interested in music and participated in both school choirs and bands.

After graduating from the local high school in 1938, he waited a year and then enrolled at Union College, where he studied music until 1942. He married Eleanor Amelia Cowles, also a musician, on June 12, 1942, and that fall they both taught music at Enterprise Academy in Kansas for a year. During that year he completed an undergraduate degree with a general science major and music minor at Kansas State Agriculture College, now Kansas State University. The Krogstads would have four children, Linda, Ronald, Marilyn, and Kenneth.

Immediately following graduation from KSAC in August 1943, Krogstad entered the U.S. Army where he became a chaplain's assistant in the 25^th Infantry. He served in the Pacific Theater of operations from June 1944 to February 1946, doing five months of combat duty in the Philippines on the island of Luzon. He received a Bronze Star for his service.

Krogstad returned to EA following his discharge in February 1946 and continued there until 1948. During the summers of 1946 through 1948, he completed requirements for a B.Mus. at the MacPhail College of Music and, in the fall of 1948, entered Northwestern University where he completed an M.Mus. in June 1949.

That fall, the Krogstads went to Southern Missionary College, now Southern Adventist University, where he taught music theory, music education, and lessons and directed the band and choir for eight years. He accepted a position at Washington Missionary College, now Washington Adventist University, in 1957 and taught there until 1962, directing the band, teaching music lessons, and chairing the music department in his first four years.

While at CUC, he continued study at Maryland University and completed class work for a doctorate in musicology and theory at Catholic University of America. He did extensive research for a dissertation titled Frederick Jacobi, his Life and Contribution to American Music, but did not complete his research and writing.

Krogstad taught general music and English in a junior high school in Montgomery County, Maryland, during the 1962-63 school year, and then accepted an offer to teach at Andrews University in 1963. While at AU, he taught music theory at both undergraduate and graduate levels, gave brass lessons, and directed the brass choir and band. He left the university in 1968.

After living for a short while in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Krogstad moved to Longwood, Florida, in 1972, where he assisted in the music programs at Forest City Elementary School and Forest Lake Academy and worked part-time in the Florida Hospital in Orlando. He was living in Apopka, Florida, at the time of his accidental death on April 4, 2004, at age 82.

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Sources: Andrews University Biographical Information file (completed by Norman Krogstad in 1965). Obituaries: Orlando Sentinel, 9 April 2004; Review and Herald, 22 July 2004; and Southern Tidings, December 2004; email from Adell Claypool at the time of his accidental death; personal knowledge, We had a close professional relationship from 1962 until his departure from Andrews University in 1968.