The Dane Vogel Memorial Scholarship
The Dane Vogel Memorial Scholarship is available to declared Geography and Environmental Studies (GES) majors at the sophomore or higher level. This is a merit-based award; students must have a minimum overall grade point average of 3.3 for all courses taken at UCCS. The Scholarship will be for $1000, and each recipient can receive the award only once. Applications must be submitted to John Harner (jharner@uccs.edu), member of the Dane Vogel Memorial Scholarship Selection Committee, by November 15. The scholarship recipient will be announced in December, and the scholarship is awarded for the Spring semester. More information and application.
Dane's Bio
Dane Matthew Vogel was born on a summer day on August 10, 1984 in St. Louis, Missouri. He was the middle son of Tim and Krysti with an older brother Timmy and a younger brother Luke. At the age of four, Dane was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. He gave himself two plus shots a day and checked his blood sugars regularly with a finger stick. Many of his friends did not even know that he lived with diabetes. He did what he had to do to take care of himself and to keep his body healthy and strong, never complaining...not once!! Dane embraced life, never letting diabetes get in the way of his dreams.
As a child Dane loved learning about space and the stars. He wanted to be a pilot but soon realized that would not be an option having Type 1 diabetes. So he decided to travel. Dane took his first big adventure to Australia and New Zealand the summer before his freshman year in high school. The following summer, Dane and three of his best friends took their first trip out west to Colorado. Dane fell in love with the mountains and realized his passion for geography. Dane started classes at UCCS where he took two memorable trips with the geography department to Guatemala and Silverton, Colorado. These were trips of a lifetime where he made lifelong friends.
Dane was humble, gentle, caring, handsome, interesting, and adventurous. He always had a kind word to say to a friend or a stranger. Dane had a quiet strength about him and had a big heart for people in need and for animals. One of the sweetest things we heard at Dane's "life celebration" was from a young lady who went to grade school with Dane. She said that Dane was nice to her sister when nobody else would be. That was Dane. He marched to his own drum and always did the right thing, even when it wasn't the popular thing to do. Dane was known for his one of a kind, contagious laugh. Brent Wallace, the biology professor who Dane worked for at UCCS, said he could hear him laughing down the hall and it always made him laugh as well. As his brother Timmy said, "Dane was the stir in the drink." His younger brother Luke called Dane everyone's "phone a friend", because he knew something about everything. He was the most awesome son, brother and friend and he was admired and loved by all who knew him.
We lost our Dane on the first day of spring, 2012. He and his best friend Matt had friends in town from St. Louis and took them for a trip to the mountains. After a perfect weekend of hiking, snowboarding and laying in the hot springs at Mt. Princeton, Dane came down with the flu. Sometime late in the day on March 20, Dane went in to diabetic coma. Our bags were packed as we were to join Dane in Colorado four days later for a family ski trip. Dane's time on earth was done, but your time is just beginning. Go out and make a difference in the world the way that Dane did and have fun along the way!
Our family is so very proud to have Dane's legacy live on at his beloved UCCS. We plan to honor our beautiful son and live each day the way he would want us to...to the fullest! We have a peace and comfort knowing that Dane is in heaven climbing mountains. He will be our great reward someday!
Our hope is that knowing more about our son touches you in some meaningful way, in the same way that Dane's professors and classmates at UCCS touched him and the way that Dane touched everyone who knew him. UCCS was a special place for Dane filled with fun memories and special people.
At Dane's life celebration, two thousand people came to pay tribute to him. In honor of our beautiful son, UCCS and the Vogel family are proud to award the annual Dane M. Vogel Memorial scholarship to a worthy recipient. Our hope is that our Dane's story inspires you to not dwell on the obstacles that life deals you, but to go out and live your dreams and be the best you can be!
Dane Matthew Vogel will always be our hero and our best friend!!
"It's not the years in your life that count...It's the life in your years." Abraham Lincoln
Scholarship Recipients
2023: Frank Vazzano, Travis Pochipinski
2022: Dani de Leon
2021: Austin Kent
2020: Joseph Eubank
2019: Gerard Ligotti
2018: Jana MacInnis
2017: Stephanie Cantu
2016: Noah Taube