John Scogin Jr. was 38 years old and lived in Orfordville. On the morning of October 13 he rode his motorcycle south on North County Highway H in the Town of Center. A pickup truck coming the other way turned left into a driveway. The two vehicles met head-on in the southbound lane.
Deputies got the call around 6:19 a.m. They found John already gone. He was pronounced dead right there on the road. The truck driver, a 20-year-old man from Janesville, stayed at the scene. He had no injuries.
The Rock County Sheriff’s Office looked into what happened. The truck had been headed north. The driver tried to turn left toward a driveway on the west side of the highway. That put him straight into the path of the motorcycle.
Authorities cited the truck driver for failure to yield the right of way while making a left turn that caused a death. The medical examiner later confirmed John died from the crash injuries. More testing was still going on in the days after.
John grew up and made his home in the Orfordville area. Friends and family knew him as someone who enjoyed the open road. Thirty-eight years is not a long time. He still had places to go and people to see.
The quiet stretch of highway between County A and Highway 14 turned into the place where everything stopped for him. One ordinary turn by another driver changed the day for everyone who knew John.
People who cared about him now carry the memories of the man he was. The citation and the investigation will run their course. What remains is the sudden end of a life that still had room to grow.
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