Milton “Mike” Korgan
July 14, 1939 – Jan. 7, 2025
Milton “Mike” Eugene Korgan, aka Ken Chase, who lived in Portland and Yachats, peacefully passed away surrounded by his family on Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. He was 85.
Mike was born on July 14, 1939, in a two-room farmhouse on his family’s dairy farm in Moore, Okla. In grammar school, Mike was introduced and drawn to show business and broadcasting through the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He learned to run the lights and sound for his uncle’s sermons that were held in a theater. Mike was also drawn to his father’s radio collection used to broadcast local church services.
From an early age, Mike was drawn to music and he taught himself radio engineering and broadcasting. He spent summers working at radio stations, and at 14 he became the youngest person to pass the test to obtain a first-class radio/telephone operator license. Shortly after, he led the team that built the first stereo FM radio station west of the Mississippi in Oklahoma City, Okla. He attended high school at the Ozark Academy in Gentry, Ark, and then attended Southwestern Union College when his family moved to Keene, Texas.
In the late 1950s, he moved to Lincoln, Neb. to attend Union College where he majored in music and radio engineering. While attending school, he worked as a disc jockey at a local AM radio station. Mike was not so popular with the area farmers after he converted the polka station to a rock and roll format. While in Lincoln, he fell head-over-heels with and married Carol Codr on Nov. 19, 1960. Shortly after, Mike was recruited by KISN radio in Portland as its program director and disc jockey.
The newlyweds packed up and moved to Portland where Mike adopted the name “Ken Chase” as his on-air radio personality. Mike “Ken Chase” became one of the elite on-air disc jockeys in Portland, known as the KISN Good Guys.
While working full time at the radio station, Mike and Carol opened a teenage nightclub called The Chase, which featured local rock and roll bands. After turning down Paul Revere and the Raiders as their local house band, they chose the more clean cut group, The Kingsmen, to represent the club and play as house regulars.
With his engineering and music background, Mike would tape demo sessions with the bands that played at the nightclub at the local recording studio. Once he felt The Kingsmen were ready, Mike recorded and produced the most iconic version of the rock and roll classic, Louie Louie. The recording was released and climbed the Billboard top 40 charts to fame.
It was Mike’s unique recording technique that made the Kingsmen’s version of Louie Louie so different and iconic, including lyrics that were not easily understandable. This led to speculation about the meaning and content of the song, and bred controversy about its allegedly dirty lyrics, even though Richard Berry wrote it as an innocent Calypso love song. The recording was banned in numerous markets and even prompted an FBI investigation, but after passing the test of time it’s now a cult classic.
The recording received widespread acclaim and has been covered by many bands, featured in countless television commercials and motion pictures, including National Lampoon’s Animal House which was filmed in Eugene. Ken Chase, as producer of The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018. It was among Mike’s proudest accomplishments.
Mike also worked in broadcast television as an engineer and director at many of the Portland television stations. He was also a real estate investor and in 1976 he and his wife Carol opened Korgan’s Strudel House in the Moreland-Sellwood neighborhood of Portland. Mike and Carol were the first couple to be certified as executive chefs in the state of Oregon and their restaurant was a Portland classic for almost 25 years.
Mike and Carol always had an entrepreneurial spirit and it led them to start many businesses over the years. They opened and ran several successful restaurants, nightclubs, a coffee roaster, a dinner theater, and more.
After selling their businesses in the late 1990s, Mike and Carol “retired” and applied to volunteer and live at the Heceta Head Lightkeeper’s House south of Yachats. They were selected from over 500 applicants and moved to the coast. With all their experience and an exciting vision for the historic property, the Korgans transformed the House into the Heceta Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast, a renowned inn that has received national acclaim. Their seven-course gourmet breakfast was even featured on the cover of the New York Times travel section. And, as Mike always noted, it was printed “above the fold.”
In 2004, Mike was diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 prostate cancer. As with everything he did, Mike tackled his disease head-on. Against insurmountable odds, he surpassed all his doctors’ expectations and lived 21 years beyond his original prognosis.
Mike succumbed to his illness and passed away at 6:17 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 7 surrounded by his wife, Carol, sons Dan and Todd, and daughter Michelle. Mike is survived by his wife, Carol Korgan, sons Todd Korgan and Dan Korgan, daughter Michelle Korgan, daughter-in-law Kate Korgan, and three grandsons, Alex Bursey, Skyler Bursey, and Jonah Schoenmann.
Mike loved good food, good wine, fashion, family vacations, and spending time with family and friends. Most importantly, he was deeply in love with and devoted to Carol, whom he was happily married to for 64 years. He will be dearly missed.
A private family burial will be held Jan. 13. There will be a memorial celebration in Portland in the coming months. In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes donations in Mike’s name to either The OHSU Knight Cancer Institute at https://ohsufoundation.org/cancer/ or The Prostate Cancer Research Institute at https://pcri.org/donate.
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