Bob Rogers

Bob Rogers, 88, journalist and former jazz musician, of Story, Wyoming, died March 17, 2021 at his residence. At his request, cremation has taken place and no services are planned.

Mr. Rogers was born October 27, 1932 in Los Angeles, California, to Ross Alexander and Anna Kathleen (Lowrey) Rogers. On May 16, 1959 he married Mary Ann Galloway in Los Angeles, relocating to Bridgeport, California in 1963 and to Buffalo, Wyoming in 1972. The couple later divorced. On September 17, 1999, Mr. Rogers remarried Ramona (Mansfield) Doyle of Sheridan.

Up to the time of his death, Mr. Rogers spent over 50 years as a magazine editor, writer/reporter, national advertising director, and publisher in the fishing, hunting, shooting, and equestrian disciplines. In earlier years, Mr. Rogers was a professional jazz musician, composer, arranger, and band leader whose small groups and larger bands recorded on the Indigo and Empire Records labels. His bands featured some of the better-known named musicians in jazz.

Mr. Rogers officially retired from the music business as a drummer in 1961to begin his publishing career with the Los Angeles Times. He relocated to the High Sierra mountains of northern California where he and his wife operated a resort business and reported on the outdoors for several newspapers and magazines until 1968 when they traveled extensively throughout the West for Western Outdoors magazine and Western Outdoor News before settling in Buffalo. While there, he served two elected terms as president of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, and became editor of the Marketplace advertising newspaper of Sheridan which he renamed the Country Journal, which was eventually sold by its publisher, and is now known as the Country Bounty. Mr. Rogers also published Wyoming’s only bi-weekly outdoor newspaper for several years, the Wyoming Outdoor Reporter and hosted its weekly statewide radio show of the same name on many stations, including Sheridan’s KROE. While his first wife worked in Story and Sheridan as an advertising sales representative for Western Horseman and Shooting Sports Retailer magazines, among others, Mr. Rogers became editor of Shooting Sports Retailer trade magazine in 1995, where he served until 2014, and a start-up publication, Equestrian Retailer magazine, owned by Western Horseman. In 2014, he started GunProPlus, a daily news source website in the firearms industry which he continued until his death. His wife Ramona was the graphic designer and production manager for those publications.

Mr. Rogers returned to his musical roots in Story beginning with playing a small, digital keyboard. He soon advanced to larger, better pianos and began accompanying some of his favorite, recorded, professional jazz pianists. He enjoyed it so much that he developed “Storyville West,” where he played small, private concerts for some of Sheridan’s jazz devotees.

Mr. Rogers, a U.S. Navy veteran serving on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CVA-12) and with the naval helicopter rescue squadron, enjoyed outdoor photography, fishing, hunting, equestrian activities, and jazz. He was the father to two adopted sons, Robert, Jr. of Lincoln, NE and Timothy of California, and one foster son, Michael Smith of Florida, and grandfather to five grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents, his first wife, a brother, Donald Ross Rogers, and two sisters, Kathleen Hessler, California, and Marion Miller, Oregon. Survivors include his wife, Ramona, sons Timothy and Michael, and sister Eileen LaCasse of Los Angeles, and grandchildren Sean, Trisha Ann and Jaime Smith, and Raymond and Daniel Rogers, and many nieces and nephews.

He was a member of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Buffalo and Our Lady of the Pines Catholic Church in Story.

Online condolences may be written at www.kanefuneral.com. Kane Funeral Home has been entrusted with local arrangements.