Everett V. Samuelson was born March 2, 1923, in Rose Hill, Kan., the son of Rev. Albert and Hulda Samuelson. He graduated from high school in Council Grove, Kan., and after one year of college, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1942, serving in artillery Battery B of the 529th Battalion in France, Belgium and Germany.
Following his discharge from the Army in 1946, he enrolled in Southwestern College in Kansas where he met and married a classmate, Lois Elaine Boyd of Larned, Kan. He graduated from Southwestern in 1948 with a B.S. in Business Administration.He served two years as a principal and three years as a superintendent in Kansas schools. He completed a master’s degree in educational administration at Kansas State University, graduating in 1951; and subsequently earned an Ed.D. doctoral degree in educational administration from the University of Kansas.In 1954, he was appointed Director of School Accreditation for the Kansas State Department of Education. In 1957, he served in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Washington, D.C. In 1959, he became an Associate Professor and Director of the Bureau of Educational Research at the University of Colorado. This led to his appointment in 1963 as Dean of the College of Education at the University of Idaho. During his 1963-1989 tenure at the UI, the main complex of the College of Education was constructed, as well as the Industrial Education Building, the Physical Education Building and the Swim Center. The doctoral program in Education was developed, as were many other programs, including extensive international programs.
His professional activities included being an Executive member (and President in 1972) of the National Association of Land Grant Colleges and Affiliated Private Universities; a member of the Idaho Professional Standards Commission 1963-1981; a founding member of the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory; an Advisory member of the Higher Education Institute for Teacher Education; a Regional Board member of the Adult Education Consortium Board of the U.S. Department of Education; and a consultant for the National Study on School Evaluation.
He was a member of Phi Delta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi, and the International Council on Education for Teaching. He also belonged to Kiwanis Club, Masonic Lodge and the Shrine. He was active in the UI Retirees Association and served as its President in 1995. He was an active member of Moscow’s First United Methodist Church for over 40 years, serving in many capacities.
He was involved in many international activities, as a Delegate to the first Arab-American Dialogue Conference in Libya and the first Inter-American Conference on Education in Bolivia; was instrumental in developing educational programs with Ecuador and Indonesia; and was a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense in Germany and Italy.
He was preceded in death by his sister, Margaret Davis, of LaCrosse, Wis. and his brother, Albert Samuelson of Denver, Colo. He is survived by his devoted wife of 59 years, Lois; daughter, Christine Samuelson Slusarenko, of Portland, Ore., and son, Steven Samuelson, of Anaheim, Calif.; grandson, Alan Slusarenko of New York, N.Y., and granddaughter, Ann Slusarenko, of Portland; and his older brother, Arthur Samuelson of Northport, Me.
The family requests that memorials be made to the Samuelson Education Scholarship Fund at the University of Idaho.