Born in 1928 to a newspaper family, George Rogers continued his family tradition. George’s grandfather operated the weekly Portage County Gazette, which merged with the Stevens Point Journal, where his father became editor. George was a reporter, city editor, editor and, eventually, publisher of the Journal, which his family partly owned. After nearly 40 years, George retired in 1988, although he continued to contribute columns and articles.
George was not only a newspaperman, but also an avid outdoorsman and was dedicated to the quality of life in the communities his newspaper served. He received Saint Michael’s Foundation Quality of Life Leadership Award for his work in Stevens Point, the Gordon MacQuarrie Award from the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, and he was a 2004 Friend of Conservation from the Wisconsin Chapter of the Soil and Water Conservation Service. He was a founding member of the committee that developed the Stevens Point Green Circle, a 27-mile bike/walking bath around the city. He also chaired the fund drive for the Charles M. White Public Library construction and served as president of the Portage County Library Foundation.
George is the standard to which other journalists in Stevens Point are judged. Modest and humble, George’s dedication to newspapering was proven in the thousands of stories published under his name.
