Dr. William Lloyd “Bill” Pogue, a radiologist for 30 years at Grossmont District Hospital, now called Sharp Grossmont Hospital, always liked a good gag.
Even before he became a clown he wore loud shirts in crazy colors, unusual ties and wild hats, his daughter the Rev. Blair Pogue, an Episcopalian minister, said Saturday.
“He was the only radiologist I ever met who kept bringing home gifts from his patients,” she said. “They just loved him. He had a fun spirit. People would come just to see what he was wearing.”
Pogue died Nov. 13, just four days short of his 91st birthday. He lived in La Mesa for 54 years, where he was a charter member of the Sunrise Rotary Club formed in 1987. For 15 years he was the club’s mentor to the Helix High School Interact Club, a group of student volunteers.
Clowning always appealed to the doctor. When he retired from medicine in 2000 he went to a clown college and then returned to Grossmont as the hospital’s resident entertainer Pokonose El Payaso, often performing for young children facing surgery or difficult medical treatments.
“He was just interested in bringing laughter and joy into people’s lives,” Blair Pogue said. “He touched a lot of lives, really, in retirement.”
His bag of tricks included a rubber chicken and a phony reflex hammer that made the sound of breaking glass when he whacked a patient’s knee. He made animals from balloons, and had an extendable fork that he could pull from his pocket and use to poke at a patient’s food.
He also clowned for parades, special events, and even on his worldwide travels that took him to every continent. On a trip to Egypt, he wore his red clown nose in a crowd.
“He said one guy was laughing so hard he fell off his camel,” Pogue’s daughter recalled.
Pogue loved animals and often brought one or two small therapy dogs on his humorous hospital visits. Sometimes he took a toy skunk to walk down the hallway at the end of a wire with his real dog on a leash.
The doctor’s life had many facets.
He brought the first female members into his Rotary Club. He worked with the Monarch School for homeless children in San Diego. He belonged to a men’s group that met regularly to discuss philosophical ideas, and he was a docent at the San Diego Maritime Museum and the Mission Trails Regional Park.
To the end of his life, he was always trying to learn, his daughter said. His desk was covered with books on all subjects, many with page markers sticking out.
“He was so intellectually curious,” she said. “All over our house there were books falling off the shelves, things like cryptocurrency, philosophy and literature. He got, like, 15 magazines. It’s so great to have a father like that, always wanting to learn, always wanting to meet people.”
The doctor had some struggles, including one with alcohol early in life. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous about 1986 and “it was life-changing for him,” his daughter said.
“He was always open about it,” she said. “It was a big deal for a doctor back then … but he was able to help a lot of people with interventions. Our phone was ringing day and night, mostly men, some women, and he was there for them. He would give the people that called all the time that they needed.”
Pogue was born outside of Boston, Mass., in 1932. His father was an aviation corporation attorney, and his mother was a concert violinist.
He graduated from George Washington Medical School in 1959 and came to California to begin a four-year residency in radiology at UCLA Medical Center. He briefly worked at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. Then he was drafted at age 32 to be chief of resident training at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego for two years during the Vietnam War.
He moved to Grossmont District Hospital in 1967, where he introduced catheter arteriography and other new techniques. He was instrumental in obtaining the first computerized tomography scanner, or CT scanner, used anywhere south of Los Angeles and west of Phoenix. For years he worked 16-hour days.
A fellow Rotary Club member, Clara Harris, whose 92nd birthday was Saturday, said she knew Pogue for 50 years and was in the club with him for 30 years.
They both were in the club’s Peace Patrol, which walked elementary school campuses during recess to watch for children in arguments and help them work out their troubles.
“Many of those kids got scholarships,” Harris said. “It’s been a joy watching them grow up.”
She also went with Pogue on the Rotary’s Christmas trip to Tijuana, where he wore a Santa costume and passed out gifts to children.
“He mentored many, many children when they were young,” Harris said. “I admire him so much, and am grateful that I got to know him. Everybody I know loved Bill Pogue.”
La Mesa Mayor Mark Arapostathis adjourned the regular La Mesa City Council meeting Nov. 14 in Pogue’s honor.
“He was a person who gave back to the community, and we were fortunate to have him,” the mayor said.
Pogue is survived by his wife of 59 years, Gwen, their daughters, Blair and her husband, Dwight Zscheile, of Minneapolis, Minn., and Kirsten Pogue-Cely and her husband, Luis Cely, of San Diego, and grandchildren Diego and Jade Cely, and Luke Zscheile.
A celebration of life is scheduled for 10 a.m. Dec. 16 at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 4816 Glen St. in La Mesa. Guests are encouraged to wear their favorite hat in honor of Pogue’s hat collection.
In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be sent to Doors of Change, an organization helping homeless youth in San Diego and Boys to Men, an organization which mentors and empowers fatherless teenage boys in San Diego.
