Robert Austin Rogers

Relatives and friends of Bob are invited to attend his Memorial Mass at 11:00 am, Saturday, March 8, 2014, at St. Andrew the Apostle Catholic Church in Apex, NC. Inurnment with military honors will occur at St. Andrew after the service.

Bob was born April 24, 1939, in Bronx, New York, the son of the late Harold Oliver Rogers and the late Anne Sweet Rogers. After briefly attending New York University, Bob served our country in the U.S. Army in Massachusetts at Fort Devens from 1959-1965. In 1962, Bob was hired by AT&T; during the 40-year span of Bob's engineering career, he worked in New York City, NY; Miami, FL; Raleigh, NC; and Wilmington, NC. While he was raising his family and working, he earned his Engineering degree from Miami Dade Community College. His love of boats led to a stint as a weekend yacht broker in Ft. Lauderdale in the 1970’s. His love of design and architecture inspired him to found and become the President of Northrun Builders, where he and his best friend and brother-in-law, Jim O’Brien, built homes in the Raleigh area in the 1980’s.

Yet there was so much more to Bob. Faith. Family. Boats. Sailing. Painting. Drawing. Skydiving. Scuba Diving. Fishing. Learning, Learning, Learning. Architecture. Design. Construction. Model Railroading. Bob’s lifelong passion for all of these important elements of his life led him to finish his career in Wilmington, NC, where he could paint near the ocean, devote time to his model trains, and tinker incessantly on his 1969 Grand Banks boat. Bob’s love for the seashore and coastal areas inspired him to paint architectural structures intertwined with nature, as seen in his many boat panoramas. His paintings, murals, pen and ink, and character depictions have enlivened his community for many years.

Bob was actively involved in selling his art and managing the Wilmington Gallery, and in taking college classes until he could no longer attend. He was a certified boat-builder and a scholar of boat design.

He is survived by his loving and grateful children, Kelly Rogers Garnett, her husband, Christopher (Chipper), and their three children Christian, Anya and Lilia of Cary, NC; Heather Rogers Kennedy , her husband, Mark, and their two daughters Emma and Hannah, of Apex, NC; his son, Patrick Matthew Rogers, and his wife Beverly and their two children, Gentry and Patrick, of Cary, NC; and his former wife of 29 years, Ora Barbour, of Raleigh, NC.

Memorial donations in Bob’s memory may be made to Hospice of Wake County, 250 Hospice Circle, Raleigh, NC 27607, or to the charity of one’s choice.