Chandler was sentenced to death for the 1989 murder of his first wife Joan Rogers, 36, and their daughters Christe, 14, and Michelle, 17. Mama sent you there to get educated. Well, the next day, Don calls back and said, Why not play football? And here I am.. On the night in 1984 that Rogers signed with the Browns, the first thing he asked Arnold to do was help in purchasing the house. You just can't go on without forgiving. Mama, have I left too hard a road for Reggie? he asked. Country music icon Kenny Rogers wife, 55-year-old Wanda Miller Rogers, was at his side for nearly three decades. While on a business trip in California during Season 2, Don has a fling with a wealthy woman named Joy. She kept her MacBook Air at a desk in the kitchen, where she wrote most of her emails. Loretha Rogers was holding back her own tears as she recalled that exchange with her son. In Season 4, she reappears as a heroin addict and wife to a failed playwright. But according to Rogers mother and other close friends, Don was having more than standard pre-nuptial anxiety about sharing his life with a wife. On a hot July afternoon, little Don lies sleeping on the floor just inside the front door, a blanket covering all but his face. There were gifts, too, even though family members say that they never asked for anything. Well, you can do it. Joanne lives in an apartment building at the edge of the 456-acre Schenley Park, filled with a canopy of trees, an ice skating rink and botanical gardens. Kenny Rogers, the legendary country music icon, died of natural causes at the age of 81. IE 11 is not supported. But on the morning of June 27, just hours after his bachelor party and a day before his scheduled wedding to Leslie Nelson, his college girlfriend, Don Rogers did not do the right thing. . There were the new cars--a white Cadillac for Loretha, a BMW for Reggie, a compact for Jackie. On the football field, the former UCLA and Cleveland Browns safety could be counted on to serve and protect Mr. Rogers neighborhood. Joanne Rogers, wife of the late Fred Rogers, in her home in Pittsburgh in November. Rogers was selected in the first round with the 18th pick of the 1984 NFL Draft by the Cleveland Browns. After that run-in with Harshman, I was ready to go home and go to work, Reggie said. In the wake of the accident, NASA redesigned the booster fuel segment joints, added a third O-ring and heaters to make sure the seals would work properly under a wide variety of conditions. It was a scary, terribly numbing. ", One of #Pittsburghs favorite neighbors.Joanne & Fred forever changed our city. She tries to get drug money out of Don Don obliges, buying one of her paintings out of sympathy. He made you feel like you were somebody. She said Riley is just a man she knew long ago. Loretta Rogers, centre, the widow of company founder Ted Rogers, leaves the TD Centre with daughter Martha Rogers after a meeting at Torys LLP, in Toronto, on Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021. ! she advised in her last message to me before my plane departed for Pennsylvania. I remember doing my live shot during the Tree of Life tragedy, and then someone pointed out that I was standing right in front of Freds old church, a teary Surano told me, referring to the Sixth Presbyterian Church he attended a few blocks from the synagogue where 11 were killed during the deadliest mass shooting against Jews in the U.S. There was something about that moment needing him in that moment that was so overwhelming and beautiful. Seated on the orbiter's upper deck were commander Scobee, pilot Michael Smith, flight engineer Judy Resnik and Ellison Onizuka. He got me out of some home-life jams. But Loretha Rogers noticed that her sons eyes were red and that maybe those were tears, not sweat, streaming down his face. Don Rogers Is A Member Of . He left for UCLA alone at the end of that summer. The autopsy report from the Sacramento County Coroners office showed that, although cocaine intoxication was the cause of death, Rogers body showed no signs of long-term use. Two of Rogers former UCLA teammates, who asked not to be identified, told The Times that Rogers and a few other Bruin players had used cocaine and marijuana during Rogers junior and senior years. He was in the service. Said Homer Mascarro, Rogers high-school football coach: Joe wasnt (always) around . I dont know, of course, but maybe he was looking for a way to escape for a while.. After winning at the Clios, Don celebrates hard for a few days. Less than a week later, a message popped up in my inbox. These days, when Loretha Rogers finds herself thinking of Don, she winds up either laughing or crying. He used to say, They gotta let me play ball. . He had to live somewhere during the season.. She got up to show me around the house, making note of a painting of the couples Crooked House on Nantucket and a 143 yellow production sign from the Hanks film. Every time hed come home after football season, hed come see me. They thought there was a problem, but they did not have any idea at all of what had happened.". but I honestly believe if he had made it through Saturday, everything would have been all right.. Ballard said she had not seen Rogers for two years before his death. I never saw Don take drugs. Downrange distance 7 nautical miles. Joanne she dropped Sara early on, deeming it too stuffy was raised in a Puritan home, and she was repulsed by her schoolmates who talked about sucking face. Any kissing she said she and Fred did was pretty unpracticed.. It was almost time for Joannes own Hollywood moment, so I left her to prepare for the evenings premiere. For the first time in 23 years, she is trying to make it without her little gentleman. I just wake up and try to make it through the day.. What am I going to do now? a frantic Don asked. There was no more pressure to take drugs at UCLA than anywhere else. She wrote about the weather, her health, her visits to see live music. That would just be terrible for his family if it was.. Jesse Jackson held an anti-drug rally at Grant High School in the old neighborhood the same day as Rogers funeral, more than 600 people attended. I wrote back, and so our correspondence commenced. After Joan Their relationship is short-lived. The other, her second wedding ring, was one hed given her many years into their marriage because shed found the first big, fat diamond too dressy.. He was under unbelievable pressure that last week, and he always carried the family burden on his shoulders, said Steve Arnold, an agent who represented Rogers and helped handle his finances. The first was to be Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire high school teacher who won a nationwide competition to teach lessons from space. He wanted the best for me.. Don cuts off his fling with Faye by announcing his engagement. If the couple was out at an event that turned out to be bland, he had a go-to way of making her laugh: passing gas. But in the days immediately after Dons death, Roscoe Riley arrived at the Rogers house and joined grieving family members. . Staying here all day just gives me too much time to think, she said. Wed walk and talk and ride around in his car. Joanne Rogers attends the U.S. They want to share their story with me. She sat through the screening her third time seeing it next to one of her sons, Jim, who had yet to see the movie. Whats the matter, Donald? Loretha asked. Said Leslie Nelson: Don never complained about helping his family. He always washed Dons car. Increasingly manic-depressive and discontent, Betty spent much of her marriage to Don stuck in the suburbs as Don gallivanted about in NYC. In the years following the publication of the cover story, Fred and Junod kept in touch migrating from written correspondence to email as he typed away on a lightweight laptop that Joanne had given him one Christmas. Then, as his wedding approached, Rogers confided to his mother that he was having serious second thoughts about getting married. The affair gets violent when Jimmy finds out about it. She was introduced to the spotlight at a young age, making appearances in some of her father's films. The entire town knew we were there filming a movie about Mister Rogers. Shes still waiting for her wedding day.. The last day or so, he wasnt sure he wanted to go through with it, said Kevin Nelson, who was to have been in the wedding party but instead served as a pallbearer. Its going to take Reggie a long time to get over this.. You got to keep both open, even if you dont want to see whats going on. We were closer than the two front teeth in your mouth.. Hanks, how is filming going? "I could see them, and I could see their anxiety as it came down to the launch period and then how happy they were when they saw the actual liftoff," he recalled. I talked to about 15 junkies I know, and they say its impossible to smoke that much coke in that short a time (2 1/2 hours). So when he went, I could feel he went at peace and even with joy. Virgo Named Don #14. Most recently, Don had helped his brother, Reggie, out of a financial bind in Seattle, where Reggie plays football for the University of Washington. 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. He was not a modest person.. . A row behind them, I watched as Jim wiped away tears throughout the movie. He graduated from Norte Del Rio High School in Sacramento, California in 1980, where he excelled in football, basketball and baseball, garnering All-City honors in all three sports. FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. -- June Scobee, widow of the space shuttle Challenger's commander, will marry Lt. Gen. Don Rodgers, commander of the Army You struggled to raise us. Its the truth. Are you enjoying your time here in Pittsburgh? the actor said. Once she settled on which one was Rogers, they started seeing each other, and their relationship became serious the summer of 1983 when they returned to their Northern California homes. so you could see Loretha look to Don to take over. Nov. 26, 2019 5 AM PT Fred Rogers proposed to Sara Joanne Byrd in a letter. Don wouldnt let me. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider When a new line of Mister Rogers sweaters came out, she told me she thought they sounded comfortable, but she didnt want one: Im very warm-natured and sweaters make me too hot and itchy.. He was voted the NFLs defensive rookie of the year in 1984 and was an alternate for the Pro Bowl last season. "Harder," he says. I never asked. At 91, she is the chair emerita of Fred Rogers Productions and the Honorary Chair of the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning & Childrens Media on the Saint Vincent College campus. They were at least three sizes too big, but they were comfortable, and he liked them. He said he wanted me to have as good a senior year as he did. WebAnna is the real Don Draper's wife. Reggie had quit the basketball team after his sophomore year in a dispute over playing time with Coach Marv Harshman. He called every day (from UCLA and later Cleveland) and Id answer it and hear him say, Hey, baby. He never called me mama when he got older. Shelly is a TWA stewardess Don meets on a flight to Baltimore in the first episode of Season 3. The legend, whose career spanned more than 60 years, passed away at the age of 81 in March 2020. When he was a kid, Id send him things like a guitar.. Every time I tried to ask him about it, he wouldnt talk about it., I didnt think that he didnt love Leslie, but he looked at his dad and me and our divorce, and also the way his son was being shuttled back and forth between his mother and my house, and he worried about his marriage, Loretha Rogers said. Some guys had beer at parties after games, some had other stuff.. Spectacular even if it should be raining!!. The families, of course, moved on. January 26, 2016 / 6:00 AM Sometimes, if we communicated via text message, shed include her Memoji a customizable avatar shed created replete with her curly gray mop of hair, glasses and tooth gap. Nearly 2,000 mourners at Sacramentos Arco Arena listened to one of Dons favorite songs, The Greatest Love of All, which says a lot about his life: Everybodys searching for a hero People need someone to look up to I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs A lonely place to be So I learned to depend on me . Dons path was straight and mostly smooth. Instead, they went for the funeral. Joanne Rogers became a guardian of her husband's legacy as the beloved host of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," eventually allowing his life to be memorialized in the 2018 documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor?". Our virtual pen pal communication began last summer, just after the release of Nevilles documentary. Years ago, at a junior high school awards dinner, one of Don Rogers teachers thought she was paying Don a compliment when she said: Youve certainly left a hard road for your brother to follow.. It was 1952 and they were in the midst of a long-distance courtship that began at Rollins College in Florida. The flight schedule also included a high-priority astronomy mission, the first military shuttle flight into polar orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, launch of the Hubble Space Telescope and the first fight of a journalist who would become the second so-called "private citizen" to fly in space. Kevin Nelson, Rogers roommate all four years at UCLA, said he never knew of Rogers using drugs. Id never keep that from him. The liftoff appeared normal enough, but 73 seconds later, as the shuttle was passing through 46,000 feet at a velocity just under twice the speed of sound, the spacecraft was engulfed in a sudden maelstrom of fiery vapor and debris. Hes not here now to ask.. "As the commander's wife, I felt a great deal of responsibility to help not only my children and the other spouses and their children, but a nation of school children awaiting the lessons from space. Megan has a great record taking care of Don's kids, traveling to California with the family in Season 4 to help out. And she doesnt like it. You deserve it. . Everyone's grieving, I mean it's shock. Something about Watch out, buster! And Ive never in my life said buster to anybody, she said with a laugh. Before she became too overwhelmed by well-wishers even Mayor Bill Peduto crouched down next to Joannes movie seat her Sony escort returned to bring her to a waiting car. People do drugs. "It's also interesting to hear the perspective from my children as adults when they talk about it," she said. Thirty years after the space shuttle Challenger broke apart in the clear, cold sky high above Cape Canaveral, the commander's widow no longer feels anger at NASA and the management missteps and schedule pressure that kept the orbiters flying despite a fatal flaw in their solid-fuel boosters. One day I was taking the elevator in the hotel and a guy got on and said, Mr. I dont know where they got that birth certificate with Joe Rogers on it. Donald carried him. I knew they were all good in sports and they could use that to get scholarships, if they worked hard in school. She also works on investigations and was part of the 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist team that covered the tragic shooting on the Rust film set. We both had summer jobs at the Christian center (in the old neighborhood) and we started seeing each other, Ballard said. Yet when the filmmakers behind A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood approached Joanne to get her blessing on the project, Micah Fitzerman-Blue, who wrote the film with Noah Harpster, said, She really only had one request: that we not treat her husband as a saint.. That was not always easy, even for Don Rogers. Doha Madani is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. Rogers was born in Texarkana, Arkansas. I open my eyes sometimes and hes still there, she said. Born Still, it appears that he, too, might become a promising professional football player. Lieutenant General (R) Thurman Donell "Don" Rodgers, 87, who had a distinguished military career, died last Thursday at the home he shared with his wife of And all my children got scholarships for sports (Don to UCLA, Reggie to Washington for basketball first, and then football, and Jackie to Oregon State for basketball).. It was the top of our careers, the top of our lives, I mean, he is now the commander of the space shuttle! "He's out there now as somebody who's somehow way above all the rest of us," Joanne Rogers said. Donald took it most serious. Reggie suffered injuries to his arm and back after being hit with a yard-line marker, but the Sacramento Bees account of the fight said that witnesses also saw Reggie swinging a yard-line marker. After Don had earned All-American honors his senior year at UCLA and later signed a reported four-year, $2.5-million contract with the Browns, the first thing he did was buy his mother a new house for $100,000 in South Natomas, an upscale area only two miles from the old neighborhood.