Rogich, who saw son return to homeland as ambassador, dies

Shaunta Grimes

Thursday, Nov. 4, 1999 | 11 a.m.

In 1949 Ranny Rogich arrived at Ellis Island, N.Y., from her native Iceland with her husband and young son. Forty years later that son, Sig, returned to their homeland as ambassador from the United States.

Ragnheiour "Ranny" Arnadottir Rogich, 81, who lived in Las Vegas 40 years and raised four children here, died Tuesday.

As a young woman, Rogich, born Oct. 10, 1918, in Westmon Island, Iceland, worked for American Airlines and attended pastry-making school in Denmark. She met Edwin "Ted" Rogich, her second husband, in 1946, and they married in 1948. When Rogich met her husband, she was working in administration for American Airlines and raising her son, Sig, then 2.

That prompted a career change, to homemaker, a role family friends say she filled well.

"My memory of her is her strength, her ability to overcome being here, away from her family," Sig Rogich said.

Sig Rogich said his mother worked to keep her Icelandic heritage alive for her children. She wore a traditional Scandanavian costume on special occasions and traveled several times to Iceland with her children. Rogich spoke three languages including her native Icelandic, Danish and English. "She was a very smart woman," Sig Rogich said.

Las Vegas Sun President and Editor Brian Greenspun remembers Rogich as a warm woman that often opened her house to him as a child.

"I remember a time in Las Vegas when as kids we were always looking for a safe friendly place to gather, and Mrs. Rogich provided one of those places to us," Greenspun said. "It's one of the memories I've kept all these years.

"She raised a wonderful family and contributed much to the fabric of what Las Vegas has become. My whole family shares the sorrow of the Rogich family at her passing."

After emigrating to the United States with her new, American husband, Rogich and her family settled in Metaline Falls, Wash., where they stayed for five years before moving to Henderson.

She raised her four children in Nevada, one of whom made the Rogich name nationally known. Her oldest son, Sig, is one of most influential political advisers in the state, playing key roles in the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and working as an adviser in both administrations.

Sig Rogich was appointed ambassador to Iceland for the Bush administration in 1992, a position he held for less than a year before being called back to the United States by Bush to run his re-election campaign.

More recently Sig Rogich, who returned to Nevada in 1992, raised $6 million for Kenny Guinn's gubernatorial race and is currently Nevada finance vice chairman for the presidential campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush.

In addition to Sig and Edwin, Ranny Rogich is survived by her daughter, Ronnie Chestnut of Las Vegas; sons, Steve Rogich of Spokane, Wash., and Ed Rogich of Las Vegas; sisters, Ella Stefansson of Reykjavik, Iceland, and Elizabeth Moller of Westmon Island; and three grandchildren, Erin, Britten and Ross.

A visitation for family and close friends is scheduled for Friday from 10 a.m. to noon at Palm Mortuary-Jones followed by a service at noon.

The family suggests donations be made to the Nathan Adelson Hospice.