Thomas Edwin (“Ed”) Rogers ’39

Thomas Edwin (“Ed”) Rogers ’39, biology professor emeritus, died Saturday, Jan. 3, 2009, in Iowa City. He was 91.

Known as “Doc” to his students, Rogers was a Mount Vernon native and a 1939 Cornell College graduate. He studied zoology at the University of Oklahoma and at Princeton prior to World War II.

During the war, Rogers was drafted in the Army Medical Corps where he served at the Amarillo Air Base, Winter General Hospital, and the Fitzsimmons General Hospital until his discharge. In 1955, Ed and his family returned to Mount Vernon where he became professor and  chairman of the biology department at Cornell, where he taught until 1982.

Rogers is survived by his wife, Dorothy; sisters, Martha McNabb and Dorothy Narro; daughter, Jane Rogers Gray; son, Richard Glenn Rogers (Patti); step-children, J. Scott Ware (“Wan”), Douglas R. Ware, R. Dwight Ware (Judy), David H. Ware (Lucia), and Jessie Ware (“Stacie”); and by 13 grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren.