Eugene builder Trygve Vik dies at 82.

Byline: Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

A prominent member of the construction industry in Eugene and throughout the state, Trygve Vik, has died at age 82, leaving a building-studded legacy. His projects include the Cascade Manor retirement center in Eugene; the original lodge and 230 condominium units at Sunriver in Central Oregon; four buildings on the Hewlett-Packard campus in Corvallis; and a number of schools and churches in Eugene.

Vik died Monday morning of congestive heart failure complicated by multiple sclerosis, a degenerative disease he developed 35 years ago and which limited both his mobility and his active participation in the family business, Vik Construction Co.

The long list of his civic activities ranges from service on the Eugene Airport Commission and Eugene Water & Electric Board to community chairman of United Way, First Citizen of Eugene and bearer of the Olympic torch as it passed through Lane County in 1996.

"He was a real leader in the construction business, and he was a wonderful friend," said John Alltucker, owner of Eugene Sand & Gravel and a longtime Vik colleague.

"He did so much for this community - it would be good for everyone to realize all that he did."

Vik's devotion to his community was matched by his steadfast love of family, his wife and children say.

Cleo Vik and four of the couple's five grown children - the fifth, Brian Vik, had returned home to Portland - gathered at Vik Construction headquarters Wednesday with photographs, clippings and a bound family biography to share memories of their husband and father. A memorial service has been set for 2 p.m. on Nov. 30 at Central Lutheran Church in Eugene.

It was sheer luck that the entire family happened to be together on Sunday, just hours before Vik died early Monday, daughter Tana Taylor said.

"We had all come together over the weekend for a wedding shower for the first grandchild to be married," she said. "So he was able to see everybody."

The final reunion was marred by a quick trip to the hospital from Cascade Manor - where the elder Viks have lived for the past year - because of his increasing pain. But the episode turned out to be a blessing in disguise as well as a final display of his gentle personality, his relatives said.

"At the hospital, they decided he should be placed on morphine, so when he came back to Cascade Manor, he was feeling much better," daughter Sonja Vik said. `And it was so typical of him - as he left the hospital, even in that condition, he was thanking all the nurses and paramedics. And when family members left (for the evening), he was saying, `Thanks so much for stopping by.' That was so much like him.'

Even as children, they remember their father as always kind and understanding.

`When we really screwed up in some way and had to tell Dad about it, we would be in tears because we didn't want him to be disappointed in us, and he would look at us and say, `I love you,' ' Sonja Vik said.

But that didn't mean he was a pushover, Taylor said.

"When Mom was singing in the choir at church, we would take up a whole pew, with Dad in the middle," she recalled. "We would play little games, and if we made too much noise, he would reach over and just barely touch us with a finger, and we knew we'd better behave."

Not that the consequences would have been too grim, Cleo Vik said.

"He was a very gentle person - he wasn't good at spanking," she said.

Taylor recalls that "Dad kissed Mom every night when he came home from work," while Greg Vik remembers his father's "fantastic smile." Cleo Vik revered her husband for his "truthfulness."

"And he wasn't a boaster, he was a very humble person," she said.

The couple met at the old Central Lutheran Church in downtown Eugene, where she sang in the choir and he collected the offering. By then, he had joined forces with his carpenter father, Norwegian immigrant Albert Vik, on a project to build a new church building for the congregation at its present location at 1857 Potter St.

They completed the parish hall first - Tryg and Cleo Vik married there on Aug. 21, 1949 - and later finished the sanctuary.

"On our honeymoon, he stopped to make a telephone call and found out he'd won the first construction bid he ever put in, for the Camp Creek School," Cleo Vik said.

The couple always referred to the next decade as the `Fertile '50s,' she said. "His construction career blossomed, and all five of the children were born," Greg in 1951, Sonja in 1952, Brian in 1955, Tana in 1957 and Kristin in 1959.

The multiple sclerosis diagnosis came in the late 1960s, and within 10 years Vik lost mobility, going from walking freely to using a cane to a walker. Eventually, he relied on an electric scooter.

Even that didn't stop him from enjoying life as fully as he could for as long as he could, daughter Kristin White said.

`He loved the (Oregon) Ducks - he was a huge Duck fan,' she said. `He went to games whenever he could. On the back of his scooter, he had a big sign that said `Go Ducks.' '