Keith Rogers Passes Away

 

Keith Rogers was named the "Friendliest Boy" for the Class of 1965.

He was very active in Mac sports, participating for all four years in Football (one of the tri-captains as a Senior), all four years in Basketball and Track, as well. He played Baseball as a Freshman.

He was on Student Council as a Sophomore, Class Council as a Sophomore, Vice President as a Sophomore, Spanish Club as a Sophomore and Junior, French Club as a Sophomore, and in the Science Club.

Keith was on the Homecoming Assembly as a Senior, Float Committee as a Junior and Senior, and involved in Big Mac Day as a Sophomore.

After high school, Keith married Janet Malloy. 

For the 2011 reunion, Keith Rogers shared this: "Decatur, IL ~ Cabinetmaker. Southern Illinois University. First car: Triumph 4A."

(As of 2011, the reunion booklet contained misinformation about Keith's martial status.)

Good friend, Jerry Burgener, with Keith Rogers. Below, Jerry with his brother Kim, at the 2011 Mac '65 reunion, taken by Keith Rogers.

On September 1, 2022, his daughter Julie Rogers Castro shared the following posting:

"It is with great sadness that Susie has asked me to let y’all know that her husband and our father (Keith Rogers) passed away early this morning. He was in a rehab facility after a bout with pneumonia and died peacefully. Jack, Nikki, Katy, James and myself, and our children will be forever grateful of the love, kindness, faith and loyalty that Susie showed our dad for almost 8 years! Susie and her family persevered through many trying times with numerous health problems. He passed away knowing that he was so loved by her and so many others. Please keep Susie and the rest of our family in your prayers as we get through these hard times. Services are planned for Thursday, 9/8 in Weatherford, Texas."

Later:

"This is his wife, Susie, we had a truly blessed marriage. Almost 8 years! He had become a paraplegic due to faulty back surgery, but he still found humor and joy every day. We had an abiding love and strong faith. Run with the wind, my Heavenly Superstar! I love you eternally!"

Keith was overjoyed to be a grandfather.

Keith Rogers and Susan Lacey Rogers (below) were married on November 9, 2013.

The following brief but formal obituary was posted by the Galbreaith Pickard Funeral Chapel and Cremation Services | Weatherford, Texas:

Life Wonders

Ah, 1965. Mick's still around from then, and so are we.

One of the benefits of reconnecting with old classmates, neighborhood MacArthur friends, and even Decatur folks you never even hung out with in the 1960s is the delight in finding out where everyone's lives have taken them.

I have been very appreciative to hear that these blog postings are getting the kinds of reactions for which I had hoped. This is mainly to cause deliberative thoughtful moments about the amazing twists and turns we have all had along the way.

Or, as Stephen Day said eloquently in an email to Keith Day, which was shared with me: "I check for an update from Loren every day. Like all of us, as I learn more of the class of '65, the more I reflect on my life and what I’ve done (and what I should have done). It’s a great pleasure I look forward to every day."

What's next here?

Moving forward with this blog, I'm going to detail some quickie bios, little capsule insights into the various journeys many of us have taken. This is not about, as Rick Livesay pointed out to me, those high school labels about who was suppose to be the "most likely to succeed." There is something very hollow about those designations from high school.

From what I am seeing, the Class of 1965 has people who made radical changes in their lives and some folks who experienced the lives they always calmly wanted. Good for all of us, I say.

Honestly, we have been successful, in a variety of ways. If we have survived, even for short lives, we have made an impact. Some of our legacies will be in our children, our labor, our good works and our bad ones. Most of all, as everyone has grown to know, it will be through those we have touched that we shall know our pasts.

We all did work in some way or another, we have created various things, some have married, most have had kids, and lots of us did what was important to us, no matter what it looks like on paper, from the outside, or to others. We are straight, gay, alone, together, separated, still married, widows, widowers, divorced, confused, centered, and more. We are human.

It seems if there's one underlying theme with the Mac '65 individuals, it is that most have ended up doing what we wanted to do and retained the ability to be surprised as to where we ended up.

The bios I'll share here will be wide-ranging, from as many people as wish to share. They will not be about bragging or comparing resumes. One of the wonderful things about being older (in years but not in our minds) is that we have no one to impress any more (except for that occasional grandchild or godkid, now and then, with tales from the days before emails and texting).

Also interesting has been to hear that someone else you went to high school with crossed paths with you in their travels, unknown to either party. For example, today, because of all this classmate connecting, I was told by Dave Wooten that he was in Enfield, Illinois, at the same time I was investigating an animal mystery there in 1973. Who could have known that our lives had overlapped way back then, without this new reunion process?



As it turns out, that tale of the Enfield horror (click on that name if you wish to read about that, as I'm not going to get into the details here) has turned into quite a story. Thanks to Dave, today, I learned that, believe it or not, a murder was part of the final events there.

Like I have found in trying to connect all the dots from our graduating class, almost ever story has ended up far from what any of us could have predicted. As we know, a couple of them have been murders and others have been sad endings, but most have not. It is time to move on to a few of the happier stories. (This is not to say I won't be afraid to following up on some loose ends in the events that have open questions, regarding some deaths we are investigating, of course.)

I am very curious about you all. I want to know what everyone has been up to and what great, mundane, routine, tragic, or intriguing things you have experienced. From what I hear, I'm not the only one interested, either.

Stay tuned.

Steve Collins: Update

Millie McCaddon and Phil Clark passed along new information about the health of Steve Collins, of which I have further updated after discussions with his nursing staff at two locations and Steve.

Class of 1965 MacArthur High School graduate Steve Collins has had some ups and downs in his battle with esophageal cancer. The feeling is that members of the class may wish to know more about what is happening.

Steve Collins lives in Florida. In February 2009, he was diagnoised with cancer. He went through radiation and chemotheraphy treatments. Three weeks ago, according to Mac '65 classmate Phil Clark, Steve had a scan to see if he had any more traces of cancer. The tests discovered three tumors in his brain. He began a decline.

Recently, Steve was at Westminster Bradenton Manor in West Bradenton, Florida. When I tried to track him down there on April 20th, I learned Steve was transferred to Blake Medical Center, Bradenton, in the last few days.

At Blake, Steve reportedly does not sleep well, and is confused, sometimes. Nevertheless, he is able to talk to people, sometimes not. Probably this is to be expected, considering everything. This was according to the nursing staff whom I talked to extensively on April 20th and to those Phil Clark talked to on the 21st. I was told that Steve is really not able to talk to folks, and the next day, Clark was told the opposite. But then on the 21st, I phoned Steve, talked to him for awhile, and asked him about his life. For example, I found out he has been in Florida for 17 years.

Phil Clark also noted: "I just talked to Steve at Blake Medical Center. The nurse said sure you can talk to him, I'll get him. I was surprised he is alert. He said he went through some treatment today and he'll be back at Westminster Bradenton Manor soon. The ph. no. at Blake Medical Center is 941-792-6611."

When I talked to him, I asked Steve's permission to post his number here. Furthermore, he said he'd appreciate cards.

If you wish to send a get well wish to Steve, please use the address below:

Steve Collins, Room 470, Bed A

Blake Medical Center

2020 59th Street West

Bradenton, FL 34209-4604

As Phil Clark passed along earlier, "I know he would appreciate contacts from old classmates."

After also talking to Steve on the 21st, Keith Rogers penned me an email hoping that "a number of people [will] send him some cards of encouragement" for his recovery.

A personal note.

I knew Steve Collins well, as did some of our classmates. Steve was in my homeroom for four years, and in some classes, off and on, down through the years. A happy-go-lucky guy, he lived life fully, and is recalled by many of us as huge as a bear, but kind-hearted. As Mike Braughton said to me today, "a big guy, could be intimidating until you got to know him."

At one point, a few years after graduation, I wrote about a strange encounter that Steve said he had, which once received local attention. His account appears in several of my books, now. Today, the name "Steve Collins" is noted in hominology studies, perhaps unknown to him, regarding Steve's, Bob Earle's, and two others' Stevens Creek sighting in November 1962, off East William Street Road, Decatur. Even John A. Keel noted Steve's encounter in his 1970 book, on page 105. This was five years before Keel had penned his now-famed The Mothman Prophecies, which was the source of the 2002 Richard Gere movie, on which Keel and I worked.

For Steve, after all these years, I wish him more completely restful nights than he has had recently, and an increasing sense of feeling better.

Millie McCaddon wrote: "All we can do now is pray for Steve and his family and pray hard that there will be minimul suffering."