“All I know is what I read in the newspapers”
On Saturday July 17, twenty-nine members from the Eastern Oklahoma and Ozark sections met for lunch and a guided tour of the Will Rogers Museum in Claremore OK.
Will Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879- August 15, 1935) was America’s cowboy philosopher. He was an American stage and film actor, vaudeville performer, cowboy, humorist, newspaper columnist, and social commentator born in a log-walled, seven-room house along the Verdigris River, on the Cherokee Indian reservation in what is now Oklahoma. During his life, Will Rogers made 71 films (50 silent films and 21 “talkies”) and wrote more than 4,000 nationally syndicated newspaper columns. The incredible museum stands on the top of the hill in Claremore, Oklahoma, in his honor.
By the mid-1930s, Rogers was hugely popular in the United States for his leading political wit and was the highest paid of Hollywood film stars. He died in 1935 with aviator Wiley Post when their small airplane crashed in northern Alaska.
Members were met by guide Andy Hogan who acted as our personal Will Rogers who gave us the biography, history, and lore of popular icon. He also demonstrated several “cowboy roping tricks” and spoke in a native Oklahoma twang.
This trip was originally scheduled twice in 2020 and was rescheduled to 2021 once the museum reopened after COVID 19 protocols were lifted. Special tanks to Kathy and Joel Menold for all of their planning efforts.
