GRAND RAPIDS — With a shock of unruly hair, on-air exclamations of “Judas Priest!” or information about a pending comet, Aaron Wenger always walked into KAXE with a story to tell, a want of strong coffee and a grin a mile wide.
Aaron could make sense of the universe like no one else.
He was known as KAXE’s “staff physicist,” an unpaid position explaining space and time on a regular basis. Aaron was also a big thinker, a poet and storyteller featured on KAXE’s programs Stay Human, Wordish and The Beat.
Aaron died Monday, April 8, at the age of 81. His former student, Grand Rapids City Administrator Tom Pagel, and colleagues from Itasca Community College, Ron Ulseth and Bill Sackett, joined the KAXE Morning Show to share stories.
Ron worked with Aaron to expand the engineering program at the college.
As a young man, Aaron Wenger was an astrophysicist whose research took him into the physical natures of comets. As an older man, he tried to write words, not just equations, to fit what he saw.from Aaron Wenger's book of poetry, "Hunting Stories"
“He had a dream that we could turn engineering at Itasca into something bigger," Ron said. "We partnered up 32 years ago and we were able to achieve that dream.”
Wenger Hall was named in his honor at Minnesota North-Itasca’s new engineering building.
Tom remembered what classes were like with Aaron.
“You'd come into a physics class and he would speak for 50 minutes and you would just be engaged, and you'd get done and you realized what he talked about had nothing to do with the chapter, absolutely nothing. But it was great.
“He looked the same in 1987 as he did now. Tie-dye shirt, the epitome of the 'crazy professor.'”
Bill Sackett shared tales of getting lost in the woods near Rainy Lake and how Aaron thought it could be a good idea to strain lake water with an algae bloom through his sock to make it drinkable.
“I don’t know if you knew Aaron Wenger or not, but that was about the last thing you’d want to drink, was something through Aaron’s socks," Bill said.
Instead, they used the water for tea mixed with rye whiskey.
Stories about Aaron from his coworkers and community all spoke to Aaron's bigger-than-life personality and how he changed student’s lives.
Aaron worked hard to welcome students into engineering, including people of color, women and those who didn’t consider themselves students. Aaron wouldn’t want accolades according to his colleagues, but they see his impact on lives throughout the region and the country.
A celebration of Aaron's life will be in May. Date, time and location will be announced in an upcoming obituary closer to the time of the service. In lieu of gifts or flowers, the family asked for donations to be made to KAXE.
Hear the full conversation above, including one of Aaron’s stories.
More memories
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We heard from Aaron's brother, David Wenger. He had this to say:
Aaron Wenger on the path of totality 1942 – April 8, 2024
Brother, you led me through narrow creeks skating onward over thin ice. The paths narrowed by hanging willows, you made the fires to warm our feet from the Ohio winter. You shot arrows up to the sky while this child watched lost in the tassel cornfield.
We dove deep into azure blue water of Ohio limestone quarries. You, my brother always keeping one eye on my own path, a protector. Eventually, you went north and I went west.
You brought your visions to me and beckoned me again to follow you to wilderness. We went where the trees grew smaller, one portage after the other. Deeper into the land of lakes.
You went so much further and carried so much wisdom in that old blue tattered backpack. Our paddles struck the taconite water and pulled us together deeper into wonderful mystery.
By the sun, we shared our stories, by the stars, we listened to the wolves and the loons.
You have left us, so unbelievably in your easy chair a cup of coffee with brandy left unfinished.
Your horses are yet standing together in your pasture, and your dogs need a feeding.
Your raven slept alone.
Your world was so big, you spoke in numbers that I never understood.
Thank you for all the gifts you shared. I am left grieving, I thought we had one more portage and another lake yet ahead of us,
KAXE senior correspondent Scott Hall wrote:
We always looked forward to Aaron's sessions on the radio. He could explain physics, space exploration, and the rest of the universe in ways we could and couldn't understand, always with humor, enthusiasm and joy.
I admired him most as a consummate educator who introduced thousands of young people to science and engineering, many of whom might never have had that opportunity.
Rich, a former student of Aaron's responded:
I am one of the many people lucky enough to have been one of Aaron’s students. We all have plenty of stories to tell, one of my favorite was from a college trip to Chicago.
In the mid-1990s, the combined ICC/HCC Engineering science club took a spring break trip to Chicago. We took in some of the usual Chicago sights and sounds, including a stop in Chinatown where Aaron arranged for a family style dinner at a hole in the wall restaurant. The science parts of the trips included stops at Fermi Labs and Argonne National Laboratory.
We were incredibly lucky with our stop at Argonne. Their particle accelerator was down for maintenance, so we were able to enter parts of the lab that were inaccessible during operation. Aaron kept oscillating between teacher mode and giddy tourist mode. In his enthusiasm to take in as much of the experience as possible, a handful of us ended up getting separated from the rest of our group, including our tour guide. Our impromptu self-guided tour brought us through some poorly lit utility spaces, and eventually we stumbled upon an exit door that coincidentally led directly to our waiting bus.
Now keep in mind, Argonne is a national research laboratory. At that time, I think they may still have had their own operating nuclear reactor on site. Although the security environment was much less strict than it is today, this was shortly after Ted Kaczynski (a.k.a. the Unibomber) was arrested. The newspaper pictures of the Unibomber’s arrest looked exactly like Aaron walking into ICC on any typical day. So, as we were creeping around the shadowy back corridors of this highly sensitive national lab, following someone who looked exactly like one of the most notorious enemies of scientific research, we pondered if we were going to be shot on sight, or if we were just going to get arrested and shipped off to the nearest federal prison.
