Joseph Frank Rodgers was born in Willows to Joseph Alfred and Goldie Clare (Ridgeway) Rodgers on May 28, 1934. He had five sisters and one brother.
He attended school in Princeton at the Boggs School for his first grade class. He then moved to Niles and attended second to seventh grades.
Then he moved to the Codora area, where he attended seventh and eighth grades with Mrs. Dillard as his teacher. He attended Princeton High School and graduated in 1952.
He went on to complete a two year program in Agriculture at San Luis Obispo.
Joseph married his first wife, Janice Lovett, in 1958. That marriage ended after four years.
He then married Maxine Youngs in 1962 and together they had two children: Thad Jay Rodgers in 1963, and RaeAnn Rodgers in 1964. That marriage lasted 17 years.
Joe then married Charleen Duerr in 1984 and they spent the past 36 years together.
He started rice farming in 1954 after returning from college, and has been farming ever since. He was awarded the Young Farmer Improvement Award.
Some of Joe’s hobbies included flying over the valley rice fields. He earned his pilot’s license in 1958 and owned a small Air Coupe from 1958 to 1972.
Over the years he took many family members for rides. He also enjoyed scuba and abalone diving, snow skiing and water skiing.
There were many yearly trips to Fort Bragg and Buck’s Lake with family and friends. He also enjoyed fishing and hunting deer and elk, as well as visiting their cabin in Loleta and having family dinners with his kids and grandchildren.
Joseph felt one of his great joys and accomplishments was being a Boy Scout Master for Troop 51, which he served for almost seven years. He still remembered the kids that he taught and the great things they learned together.
Joe was a member of the Elks Lodge for 62 years. He was always an inventor, coming up with several interesting and usable items. He repaired repurposed and fabricated farm and recreational equipment and vehicles.
In his years as a farmer, this was probably a necessity. But in later years he liked to challenge himself to see what he could come up with as a form of creative expression.
With duct tape, baling wire and a hose clamp or two, he would work wonders. Among his family’s favorites was the little red go-cart that he made for his children, and the giant mosquito that RaeAnn asked him to build for one of her projects.
Joe traveled to many places. He cruised the Panama Canal, went to Disney World in Florida, took
several trips to Hawaii, saw the World’s Fair in Washington, went ghost town hunting with the Calvert’s, traveled to Russia, Australia, the Bahama’s, and took several trips to Alaska.
Joe did many projects, including drawing up and helping to build his current house, adding on to the house, building a shop, building his grain bins, reconfiguring a Quonset hut which blew over and was replaced by a newer three-sided shop.
He is survived by his stepson, Mark Duerr; daughter RaeAnn, who gave him three grandsons: Scott (Lindsay), Matthew (Megan), and Gregory (Rylee); and five great-grandchildren.
A graveside service is planned at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, May 26, at the Willows Cemetery. This is to be followed by a Celebration of Life gathering at the Willows Elks Lodge.
The family invites the friends and loved ones of Joseph Rodgers to join them.
The Glenn County Observer 