Trustees Honor Roll

Polka Historian and Archivist (1940)
Inducted on November 30, 1991

Drawn by an early fascination with radio, victrolas and 78 rpm records, Don Sosnoski has made a lifelong quest of building one of the most comprehensive ethnic music archives in the world, encompassing the folk music of Slovenia, Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Scandinavia and Austria, and polka music dating from 1910 forward. In amassing nearly 100,000 recordings and broadcasts, Don has taken great care to research, analyze, document, catalog and preserve these materials, complete with biographical files, newspaper articles and pictures. Don's "Down Polka Memory Lane" was a weekly feature on Tony Petkovsek's WXEN and WBOE radio shows from 1969 through 1983, along with periodic 60- and 90-minute mini-polka documentaries. Don has also contributed articles of historical interest to various polka publications.