Rodger says he’s happy to be in Sequim where his parents moved in 1944 and he’s remained most of his life.
He was born in November 1940 in Port Angeles and prior to Sequim, his family was living in the Ozette Hoko area; his mother’s family were early homesteaders at Lake Ozette before there was a road to it, too.
His parents sought a better school and weather in Sequim, and with war spies reported, they made the move east in 1944 to North Blue Mountain Road, now named Lewis Road.
He remembers squadrons of World War II airplanes flying over in formation, and the hopes and dreams the GIs had just after the war. “What great men!” he thought.
In Sequim, Rodger soon enrolled in Sequim Elementary School and Agnew Friends Sunday School and Church. His classmates remembered him as shy, a young man who didn’t talk much.
He graduated from Sequim High School in 1959 and immediately went to work for Lannoye Motors, the Plymputh and DeSoto dealership in Port Angeles, as an apprentice mechanic.
In 1963, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and stationed in Anchorage, Alaska. Rodger later married Lila Roup, the daughter of a Sequim dairy farmer in 1965 and he began working for the Port Angeles School District in 1971. He retired 34 years later and was instrumental in getting crossing arms mounted on the front of Washington’s school buses.
Rodger and Lila have one son, one daughter, three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
He is a member of the Story People of Clallam County, enjoys vintage tractor shows, he’s volunteered for Holden Village near Lake Chelan, and he’s hiked more than half of the Olympic Peninsula’s trails. If you stepped into Sequim Seventh-day Adventist Church during worship, you’d likely see Rodger telling a story to the children.
Except for his time in the Army and early childhood, Rodger has lived most of his life in the Sequim School District area.