William Raymond Rogers ’48 died on December 10, 2003, in Bath, Maine.
Born on April 29, 1921, in Bath, he prepared for college at Morse High School there and attended the University of Alabama before serving in the U.S. Navy Air Corps from 1942 to 1945 during World War II. After the war, he entered Bowdoin as a member of the Class of 1948 and became a member of Psi Upsilon Fraternity. Following his graduation in 1948, he was a salesman and territory manager in Maine and Massachusetts for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company until 1953, when he became president of C. W. Rogers Hardware, founded by his grandfather in the 1880s. He also ran three ski shops in Bath and Brunswick during the 1960s and 1970s. He retired in 1982. Through the years he was a member of the Bath City Council and the Bath Planning Board, was a member of the board of the Bath Customs House, and served as chairman of the local chapter of the American Red Cross. He was a founder of the Bath Savings Institution and was a member of the board of directors of the Plant Memorial Home for nearly 40 years. He also served as a member of the trust committee of the United Church of Christ in Bath. In recognition of his public service, he was the first recipient of the Bath Chamber of Commerce’s President’s Award. Surviving are his wife, Marilyn Hart Rogers, whom he married in 1950; a son, Bruce W. Rogers of Ipswich, MA; a daughter, Gayle E. Hichborn of Yarmouth; and five grandsons.