The Monkey Cage

In spite of a storm that would prove to be DC’s biggest storm since the Knickerbocker storm of 1922, over 200 people came together for a memorial service for Lee Sigelman on February 5, 2010.

The event was meticulously planned by Lee. Per Lee’s instructions, it included the Watertown High School, Texas Tech, and GW fight songs, lots of photos of dogs and cats, music by Kraftwerk and Enya, and, if you were lucky enough to be there, Doris Sigelman’s Chocolate Chip Cookies (baked by four of my GW colleagues). Eulogies were offered by Steven Knapp (GW’s president), Henry Brady (president of the American Political Science Association), me, Sara Sigelman Schmidt (Lee’s niece and a GW graduate), Dan Sigelman (Lee’s first cousin), Susan Welch (Lee’s long-time co-author and close friend), Jim Todd (Lee’s long-time friend and former colleague at Arizona) and Chris Deering, Steve Tuch and Mickey East (three of Lee’s close friends and GW basketball road-trip buddies). There was also a slide show (between Henry Brady and Forrest’s eulogies) and very moving remarks by Carol Sigelman. Per Lee’s design, the service concluded with Donna Summer’s “Last Dance,” Sarah Brightman and Andrea Boccelli’s “Time to Say Goodbye,” and Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry/Be Happy.”

With many thanks due to GW’s first rate academic technology group, we have put together a video of the service. It is available here. To watch it, you should use Firefox. A lower quality version of the service that works with Internet Explorer and Chrome is available here. If you can, watch it using the Firefox compatible version. The quality is better and the picture is larger.

The entire service gives you a flavor of Lee, his contributions, and his life. If you watch it, you will hear corny jokes, learn a little about growing up Jewish in Watertown, SD, laugh a lot, and cry. You will also see Lee in a tiger striped spandex biking outfit and lots of pink (his favorite color). He was a mensch with a style of his own, and we miss him.