Former Wyoming Arts Council board members Sally Jo Rogers, 61, died Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010.
She was born Nov. 7, 1948, in Topeka, Kan., the youngest of three daughters born to Merlin Charles “Babe” and Winifred Anne “Peg” Rogers. After brief transfers to Omaha and Denver, the family moved to Cheyenne in 1951 and then to Rawlins in 1955.
During her senior year in high school, she joined the international cast of Up With People and spent the year traveling with 150 young adults from multi-national and cultural backgrounds. The group’s goal was to make the world a better place by reaching across borders with gestures of peace, love, honesty, purity and unselfishness.
Ms. Rogers attended the University of Tulsa and University of Wyoming and graduated from California State University Long Beach.
She briefly taught school and had a long career selling real estate in Jackson Hole. She was the executive director of the Silver Buffalo Club, major gifts manager at Wyoming Public Radio in Laramie and was the vice president of Business Development at Rocky Mountain Bank for the last four years.
Sally was appointed to the Wyoming Arts Council Board of Directors. She served as president of the Teton County Republican Women, secretary of the Albany County Republican Central Committee and vice president of the University of Wyoming Alumni Association. She was a member of the Off Square Theatre Board, St. John’s Hospital Auxiliary, Rotary Club of Jackson Hole and charter member of the Presbyterian Church of Jackson Hole.
She was honored by the Rotary Club as the November 2009 Citizen of the Month.
Her interests included making friends all over the world, music, her friends and family, dancing, Wyoming and being a University of Wyoming Cowboys fan.
She is survived by her son, Chris Pierce; sister, Nancy and husband Larry Harris; niece, Valorie and husband Butch Smith; nephew, Sean Harris and companion Tamar Kummel; great-nieces, Annie and husband Dylan Cooper and Erin Brown; sister, Mary Kay Carr; cousins, Mary Ann Hille, Sid Moyers and wife Lynn, Leslie and husband Mark Hamrick, Sheila and husband CJ Laquerica, Maggie and husband Kajeer Yar and Shirley Moyers; and her best friend, Donn Dorsett.
A memorial service will be conducted at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010, at the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Rawlins. A reception will follow immediately at Rawlins Elks Lodge No. 609.
