December 5, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, ...and gave much of it away. Here's the story of a man you might not know.... but will be glad to meet—Orville Rogers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue here with our American stories. Pilot and
world champion runner Orval Rogers trained bomber pilots in World
War Two, flew the B thirty six on secret missions
during the Cold War, ferried airplanes to remote Baptist missions
all over the world, and squeezed in a thirty one
year career as a pilot with Brannff Airwaves. Orville also
(00:31):
took up running at age fifty one and ran his
first marathon six years later. But now let's hear the story.
The life story of Orville Rogers.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Nineteen twenty seven, Glenbergh flew the first solo flight NonStop
from New York and ended in Parish. He made a
tour of the central United States and deliberately he circled
every schoolhouse he could sign, and he sirculed our schoolhouse.
(01:06):
My first airplane ride, that was a fun experience. I
think I was about ten or eleven years old in
a sofa, Oklahoma. I was in the yard one day
and a plane flew over very low, and it looked
like he was going to be landing. So I jumped
on my bike and wrote down and sure if he landed.
(01:26):
She went over and talked to him. He said, yeah,
I'm giving rides four dollars. So I I had to
go back home and break my peggy bank and get
the four dollars out to come back and get my
first airplane ride. I didn't tell my parents about it
until much later. It was a wonderful experience and it
(01:46):
cemented my idea of becoming a pilot. My father deserted
my mother and my sister and me when I was
six years old, and my mother took us back to
her Paris. So we grew up in the home of
(02:07):
my grandparents, and he was a farm man. They were
not very loving in an obvious way. I knew my
grandfather loved me, but he never told me so. But
it worked out okay because I eventually came to terms
(02:28):
with the realization that that was just their way of life.
As a senior at Oklahoma University, I received the impression
I thought it was from God that I ought to
be in vocational Christian service in order to really serve
God the best. That was the wrong impression, But in
(02:51):
order to prepare for whatever God had for me, I
knew I had to go to the seminary, So I
came to seminary in September of nineteen forty and I
think it was five weeks later they held the first
drawing for the draft for World War II service. There
(03:13):
was a giant fish food in Washington, I think it
was about five feet in diameter that held slips of
paper with numbers on them for one, two, one thousand. Well,
so helped me. My number was stown Out number seven,
and so I heard from the draft board almost immediately.
So I went down and talked to them and I said, Hey,
(03:34):
I don't want to be in the Walking Army. Can
I enlist in the Army Air Corps? They said sure.
So I enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was
accepted and had my pre induction physical and they didn't
call me up right away. But that was God's way
of turning me around from my impression that I ought
(03:56):
to be in vocational Christian service and told me that
I could serve God as well or a whole lot
better as a layman. I enlisted in the Army Air
Corps November the first, nineteen forty one, five weeks before
Pearl Harbor, and we heard about it one Sunday afternoon.
(04:18):
We got the word when they turned the radio on
that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I was in training
in San Diego, flying a primary trainer. After graduating from
flying school, the second Lieutenant Palace would be assigned to
different bass. My instructor in the advanced training school recommended
(04:43):
that I become an instructor. So all my World War
two flying career I was in the training command instructing
other students how to fly an airplane. We lost a
large number of palace, student Palace and instructor Palace to
training accidents during the war. They were in such a
(05:06):
rush to get the palace to the front because we
needed them badly there, and so the program was accelerated
to the point that it really was quite dangerous. And
I flew B twenty fives for over two years instructing
in the advanced phase of the Fine training program, and
(05:27):
I loved that airplane. It was a bomber and a
very effective one. At the end of the war, I
was assigned to training in the B seventeen. I reported
to my training base for B seventeen training about three
days after they dropped the first atomic bomb. So then
(05:48):
then they dropped the second one, and the war was over.
I went ahead and finished my training in the B seventeen,
but never got to use it, and I was separated
from the Air Corps shortly after that. In April of
nineteen fifty one, I was recalled to the Air Force
as they called it then, and I was assigned to
(06:10):
Carsviel Air Force Base in Fort Worth, flying the B
thirty six, our primary defense weapon against an attack by Russia.
We were on call twenty four hours a day. If
four had been declared, we would have loaded our atom
bomb in Fort Worth, Texas, flown to Goose Bay, Labrador,
(06:30):
refueled there, and then take off from there to bomb
our sign target in Russia. The B thirty six at
that time was the largest airplane in the world. It
was longer than a B twenty nine and a B
seventeen nosed the tail. That's a lot of airplane. We
had a crew of fifteen people, and I loved flying
(06:51):
that airplane. I had always wanted to fly the big airplane.
We would have had no publem with dropping a bomb,
although we knew what destruction it could cost. But I
think everybody in my squadron, certainly on my crew, had
accepted the fact that we signed up to defend our country,
(07:11):
and while that possibly meant the destruction and the loss
of life of many people, we were prepared mentally and
psychologically in every way to accomplish that. Fifty two years later,
in two thousand and four, my wife and I were
on a Russian cruise ship. We sailed from Saint Petersburg
(07:34):
to Moscow through the river and canal systems, and we
ducked on the northwest side of Moscow after stopping twice
in cities en route, to have minister to the physical
and spiritual needs of the Russian people. We had five
doctors on board the ship and ten nurses, and many
(07:54):
of the people would be street witnessing, giving away English Bibles,
Russian Bibles, Children's Bibles, and literature. The day after we
ducked in Moscow, we had a clinic there in a
schoolhouse on a site that was probably less than five
miles from where my target was in nineteen fifty two.
(08:19):
If war had broken out, I'm glad we didn't have
to drop the bomb to begin with, and I'm equally
glad that I was able to be a part of
a Christian group going to the very same area where
my target was fifty two years before taking them the
Christian witness and telling them about our Lord Jesus. It
(08:43):
was just a wonderful feeling to accomplish that, because instead
of dropping death and destruction from above, we were carrying
in the word of life on the horizontal plane, the
word of life, eternal life, abundant life available in Our
Lord Jesus. I met my wife at Oklahoma University. I
(09:05):
had attended my freshman year and another school, and I
enrolled at Oklahoma University, so I was a sophomore and
met her when she was a freshman. She was dating
another boy when I first met her my first year there,
and they were pretty steady. It took a year or two,
but finally we became engaged. But one night I woke
(09:28):
up in a deep depressive frame of mind because I
had dreamed that she was marrying him and I was
attending their wedding, and that had a profound effect on
me for a few days, a week or two, because
I just couldn't stand the thought of losing her.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
The story of Orville Rogers continues more after these messages,
and we continue here with our American stories, and after
(10:13):
flying the B thirty six on secret missions. During the
Cold War, Orville Rogers became a commercial airline pilot and
a missionary pilot for Whycliffe Bible Translators. In this segment,
you'll also be hearing from Orville's doctor, Kenneth Cooper, founder
and chairman of the Cooper Institute. By the way, doctor
Cooper is also my doctor. Let's continue with Orvil Rodgers' story.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I always enjoyed knowing that I was delivering people for
their destinations safely and comfortably well. I flew for BRANAF
for a little over thirty years, and I loved it.
I would have flown for nothing, but I was glad
they paid me for it. Benefit Airlines started out with
(11:00):
a root structure that only included two cities, Oklahoma City
in Tulsa. It was a singling an airplane where they
soon graduated to the d C three and they were
flying from Dallas to Chicago and gradually expanding. Started out
on the DC three and flew the convert three forty
and four forty and it was taken over by the
(11:24):
DC six series, and then we had a d C
seven and then eventually got up to the DC eight
and then to the Boing seven. Twenty seven for most
of them a flying but I enjoyed flying the DC
eight to South America. It was a beautiful airplane. It
was a long range airplane. We flew it NonStop from
(11:46):
New York to Buenos Aires. It was a ten hour
and twenty minute flight, and I think it was the
longest NonStop flight in the airline business at the time.
We were flying it in nineteen seventy six. In nineteen
seventy seven, I really enjoyed that flight, but I enjoyed
all of South America. I met the founder of Wickcliffe,
(12:15):
William Cameron Towngen, in our church in nineteen sixty five,
and I volunteered to help out with Bible translation and
particularly the aviation part of it. And I realized that
while I had about maybe a dozen Bibles in my house,
there were people groups of the world that didn't not
have one word of God's word in their own native language.
(12:39):
Just felt like I could be of service in God's
kingdom by helping deliver airplanes to the translators around the
world who were there aiding the cause of Bible translation
by the safe, efficient transportation where the ruads were difficult
(13:00):
or impossible. Well, I delivered forty six missionary airplanes in
my career. They were challenging because you don't go down
to the filling station and by a road map. You
have to be prepared for the over ocean flying, which
(13:20):
means the airplane must be equipped with additional radio equipment,
it must have additional fuel for the long flights, either
Europe or Africa, or Southeast Asia or wherever you may
be going. Because you look on a globe or a
map at the Pacific Ocean and you see islands scattered
(13:41):
all around everywhere. But when you get out there and
fly it, you can fly for hours and hours and
never see an island. So if the radio station on
that island went out, or if you had difficulty with
your receiver, you'd be on your own looking for throughout
(14:01):
that vast expanse of water to find that tiny little
dot of an island down there. So this grave concern
to be able to navigate successfully. Took my first ferry
flight for George in nineteen sixty five. About a year
or two later they put me on their board and
(14:21):
I was on their board for thirty nine years. That's remarkable,
I can't believe it. And three or four years later,
the board chairman retired and they made me chairman of
the board. So I was chairman of the board for
thirteen of those thirty nine years. And it was a
delight to serve God that way. And let me tell
(14:42):
you about the climax of every missionary fly ferry flight.
When you taxi into the ramp, opened the door, and
hand the keys to the airplane to the missionary pilot.
Already there is going to be flying that airplane in
the work of Bible translation. I read a book by
(15:05):
doctor Kenneth Cooper when I was in Chicago on a
layover from our brand of Fairways flight and I literally
read it through in almost one sitting, and it was
a highly motivational book. I started running the next day,
and I've run a little over forty two five hundred
miles in the last fifty years.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Your feet are in remarkably good condition for a person
who has run for as long as you. Then a
person is good for a man of any age.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Okay, real deep.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So he has a two and half inch expansion, which
is very good. Don't let me push it out, houte
it real tight, real tight, real tight. And that's like iron.
You have very good quads of muscles straight. Yeah, at
one hundred years of age, you're like a man about sixty,
So you slow down the aging processes. You know, there's
very few people pass one hundred years of age who
(16:04):
can begin to keep up with you, even be alive
as you know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, my objectives is slow down. That's slowly as possible.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Slow down as slowly as possible. And you've proven to
what I've said for years is fastening. No, that one
can grow healthier as one grows older and not necessarily
reverse who determines that you do. Here, you're one hundred
years of age, eighty seven years of age to practicing
medicine every day. So we're enjoying life the fullest of
our goal for you and for me both and live
(16:33):
that long, healthy life of fullest and then die suddenly.
We call that squaring off the curve. And you've already
passed that. But you know, as we tell people coming
dur Clink, we call them getting couper ized by all
the recommendations we give to our patients, over one hundred
and forty five thousand patients. Now, if you follow recommendations
for a diet and wait and exercise all the various
things that we recommend that you should live ten years longer.
(16:55):
In the national average, that would mean you should live
eighty seven years. I'm already eighty seven, trying to prove
that did you wait beyond that?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I started running early on with a group called the
Country Club of Dallas, and it was competitive, but in
a friendly way, and I gradually outgrew the group. I
aged them, and I looked around and the world records
seemed to be attainable. So a little over ten years
ago now, when I was approaching ninety, I looked up
(17:26):
the world records for the one mile and the eight
hundred meters. I said, maybe I can do that. So
I engaged the trainer and he coached me on starting
and breathing and pacing, and I went to Boston. Ten
years ago I ran the eight hundred meters in world
record time. I think I broke the record by bt
to thirty seconds, but I really slaughtered the mile. I
(17:49):
think the record was eleven minutes for some seconds, and
I attacked it vigorously and finished with a time under
ten minutes. I think it was nine fifty seven something
or other. And I'm still the only man in the
world that had run a ten minute mile after the
age of ninety.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
In March this year, I attended the National Indoor Championship
Meet near Washington, DC. It was a track and field meet.
I entered five running events ranging from sixty meters up
to fifteen hundred meters, and I had no competition, so
(18:29):
I got gold records just by showing up and shooting up, starting,
and finishing. But the I sing only cake was that
I was able to set five new world records, one
for each of the five events that I entered. So
I now hold or have set eighteen world records. I
think two or three of them have been broken, but
(18:52):
I have set eighteen world records officially.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And what a story this is Orville Rogers story, And
we like to thank the folks at Vision Video for
giving us access to their wonderful documentary Flying High for
the Glory of God, The Orville Rogers Story. Check out
their full documentary and the nineteen hundred more titles of
uplifting family friendly videos at Vision video dot com. Orval Rodgers'
(19:21):
story continues here on our American Stories, and we returned
to the story of Orvill Rogers and is doctor Kenneth Cooper,
(19:42):
founder and chairman of the Cooper Institute, located in Orville's
hometown of Dallas, Texas. But both of these guys, well
they come and hail from Oklahoma. We will also be
hearing from Orville's daughter Susan, his sons Rick and Bill,
and his great grandson. Let's begin with Doc ken Cooper.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
First of all, it's not that amazing anymore. People live
pasted one hundred years. They're becoming quite that's quite readily know.
But people passed one hundred years of ature still competing
athletically the running events. That is extremely unus for one
out of a million, I would so orble has he's
had his problems. He was a marathon runner. Nor when
I first met him at age fifty four, that's forty
(20:21):
six years ago. By his first examination here at the
Flank in nineteen seventy one. I followed him every year
after that too. But what has happened is he said
some medical problems. Back in nineteen ninety three, all of
a sudden we discovered he had severe corners lease without
anh spain whatsoever. When he had a six special cornery
bypass procedure. It was nineteen ninety three. Then in twenty eleven.
(20:42):
He had a major stroke that occurred in twenty eleven,
but he's the only capacitor for thirty days.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
He say, I'll back running again. One aspect of my
running is that it gives me a platform to speak
a word for my Lord Jesus. I became a Christian
when I was ten years old, and I've tried to
follow my Lord for ninety years now. I've running races
where people alongside me or near me would falter just
(21:10):
a little bit as they approached the finish line two
or three or four or five yards. It seemed like
they were saying to themselves, there's the finish line. I've
made it, and they kind of relax and slow down
a little bit. That's not my style. I would have
powered through, running to the very end of the table,
(21:31):
and it served me well. A year ago in Albuquerque,
I was running against a ninety four year old man
and he just two of us in the sixty meter race,
and he cut off to a fast start. I don't
have fast twitch muscles, which enables a fast start in running,
and so he was three or four yards ahead of
(21:52):
me almost immediately. But I kept plugging away and maintaining
the pace that I thought would be applicable to that distance,
and he must have slowed down because I certainly wasn't
speeding up. But I began gaining on him with the
halfway mark, and at the finish line I leaned forward
(22:14):
just enough to beat him by five hundreds of one second.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
There's a magazine order that came out with a statement
that we had met five times after that race, and
I beat him every time.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And Uh, I.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Don't want to slow down at the finish line. I
don't want to be disqualified by not serving my Lord
well all through every day of my life, I would
have finished strong for my Lord, don't you. I hope
you enjoy life as much as I do. I love life.
MM My son was a marine helicopter pilot and was
(22:57):
on a rescue mission and in nineteen seventy and was
killed when they ran into very adverse weather conditions in
the extraction process. Well, God can use any experience of
life to the benefit. And one of the good things
that came out of this was a realization that Courteous
(23:19):
lived a wonderful life and he died in service for
our country and if it had to happen, that was
the best way he could. My advice to anyone in
a similar situation with me that God is still in control.
He knows what is happening, and he can control in control,
(23:40):
and he can be relied upon to supply you comfort
and help any time is needed. My wife and I've
served for thirteen months in Tanzania. I had a beautiful
sess not two ten, flying over Tanzania, which is his
biggest extras and part of New Mexico. The interesting part
(24:03):
about that trip was when we left Honolulu, I had
not explained to my wife that radio waves or straight
line just like sunlight, and once you fly about one
hundred miles or so, depending on your altitude away from
your home departure station, you lose radio contact. So I
(24:24):
was halfway to Johnston Island or so and trying to
work anybody that would talk to me, and nobody would
talk to me. I wanted to make a position report,
and since that maybe she was getting a little bit
nervous about the situation because I was using the loudspaker
and she could hear the conversation. So I took off
my headset and laid it down and put my bike down.
(24:46):
I reached over and gave her a big hug, and
I said, Honey, when you married me, did you ever
think you'd be having this much fun? She didn't hit me.
I'm free to express my life story in that manner
if my viewers understand that I'm doing it as a
(25:09):
Christian witness. I want no glory for it. I want
no commendation for it. But I found out early in
life that it would be wise to save us money
as possible and invest it so that in the future
I could be a vehicle for helping God's work, bringing
his kingdom to earth from heaven, as he asked us
(25:33):
to do. And so I got interested in investing. I
invested in the stock market in land and holding gas
and God blessing that if people ask me how did
I do that, I say I did not do it.
God did it. And it was our privilege an ISSI
(25:53):
my wife's death to give away over thirty five million
dollars to God's work.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
I knew that Dad flew a lot, but it never
felt like he missed important things like piano recitals or
football games or anything.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
And he's getting us back for that now, like we're
going to this track. Meets and interviews and banquets and birthdays, so.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
Every day's a gift. And I think he is one
that really epitomizes that. I mean, he knows it. Every
day's every day, every year, and it just it gives
us a great sense of purpose and looking toward the future.
And I think that's the way he's made it from
ninety two one hundred for sure.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
I remember when he first realized he couldn't run a
sub ten in.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
A mile anymore. And my friends in their.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Sixties all say, I can't run a sub ten a mile,
and there in the sixties, they can't remember when they
could run a sub ten in a mile, so it's
pretty fun.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
We try to keep him humble. I mean I tell
him all the time that I could do what he
does and be in the newspaper the next day too,
But the only probably is I'd be in the obituary
section and he's in the sports section.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
One of my big memories of my dad and my
mom was looking in their bedroom and seeing them on
their knees praying.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
It was regular and not for show.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
They were prayerful people and made it just a core
to their life, and they're always reading the Bible well.
And they prayed through the missionary prayer list, which I
don't know if it bothered them. It made me kind
of crazy sometimes, but they prayed for every Southern Baptist
missionary on their birthday throughout the whole year. It was
pretty amazing discipline.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
I'm in track right now in I just think that
it's great having a grandpa that is one hundred and
running tracks.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So when I run, I just think about them a lot.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
So I just think that's great.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
My dad and my mom wanted to be with us
on vacations. There's a lot of people that talk to
them and say, what you know, that's not a vacation
if your kids and grandkids are there. But he started
it over thirty years ago, and we go on fabulous
trips every summer. And it's a job now coordinating that
many people.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So it's over.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Thirty people for over thirty years going together someplace crazy
anywhere from the North Pool to Antarctica. It's Europe Africa
that they've been an amazing way for this family to bond.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I enjoy reading and studying Hebrews twelve one and two
because Paul speaks there running as being a metaphor for living,
and I think I can quoted it says, Therefore, since
we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
(28:38):
let us cast aside every weight and the sin which
does so easily beset us. Let us run within durans
the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the
joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising
(28:59):
the shame. And here'sforth is set down at the right
hand of the strong of God.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And what a story we just heard. What a life
well lived in his hundreds and still running and running
being a metaphor for life, his faith a fundamental part
of his life. The kid's vision of the parents sitting
in that room, kneeling down and praying for other people.
And we tell their stories here on this show, just
as we tell everyone's stories. Faith, no faith, no difference
(29:28):
to us, beautiful stories or beautiful stories. That he gave
away thirty five million dollars that he'd made investing because
he didn't think it was his. My goodness, what a
story to tell by itself, And what a heart, what
a generous heart, and by the way that he lived
so long. You know, we do a lot of these
stories about living longer and cutting down costs and living better.
(29:54):
These are stories that the Cooper Clinic has turned us onto.
Ken Cooper's life work WORL with Chuck Stetson in his
family office, better living at lower cost, and my goodness,
this story is a metaphor for all of those things.
Orville Rogers' story here on our American Stories
And we continue here with our American stories. Pilot and
world champion runner Orval Rogers trained bomber pilots in World
War Two, flew the B thirty six on secret missions
during the Cold War, ferried airplanes to remote Baptist missions
all over the world, and squeezed in a thirty one
year career as a pilot with Brannff Airwaves. Orville also
(00:31):
took up running at age fifty one and ran his
first marathon six years later. But now let's hear the story.
The life story of Orville Rogers.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Nineteen twenty seven, Glenbergh flew the first solo flight NonStop
from New York and ended in Parish. He made a
tour of the central United States and deliberately he circled
every schoolhouse he could sign, and he sirculed our schoolhouse.
(01:06):
My first airplane ride, that was a fun experience. I
think I was about ten or eleven years old in
a sofa, Oklahoma. I was in the yard one day
and a plane flew over very low, and it looked
like he was going to be landing. So I jumped
on my bike and wrote down and sure if he landed.
(01:26):
She went over and talked to him. He said, yeah,
I'm giving rides four dollars. So I I had to
go back home and break my peggy bank and get
the four dollars out to come back and get my
first airplane ride. I didn't tell my parents about it
until much later. It was a wonderful experience and it
(01:46):
cemented my idea of becoming a pilot. My father deserted
my mother and my sister and me when I was
six years old, and my mother took us back to
her Paris. So we grew up in the home of
(02:07):
my grandparents, and he was a farm man. They were
not very loving in an obvious way. I knew my
grandfather loved me, but he never told me so. But
it worked out okay because I eventually came to terms
(02:28):
with the realization that that was just their way of life.
As a senior at Oklahoma University, I received the impression
I thought it was from God that I ought to
be in vocational Christian service in order to really serve
God the best. That was the wrong impression, But in
(02:51):
order to prepare for whatever God had for me, I
knew I had to go to the seminary, So I
came to seminary in September of nineteen forty and I
think it was five weeks later they held the first
drawing for the draft for World War II service. There
(03:13):
was a giant fish food in Washington, I think it
was about five feet in diameter that held slips of
paper with numbers on them for one, two, one thousand. Well,
so helped me. My number was stown Out number seven,
and so I heard from the draft board almost immediately.
So I went down and talked to them and I said, Hey,
(03:34):
I don't want to be in the Walking Army. Can
I enlist in the Army Air Corps? They said sure.
So I enlisted in the Army Air Corps and was
accepted and had my pre induction physical and they didn't
call me up right away. But that was God's way
of turning me around from my impression that I ought
(03:56):
to be in vocational Christian service and told me that
I could serve God as well or a whole lot
better as a layman. I enlisted in the Army Air
Corps November the first, nineteen forty one, five weeks before
Pearl Harbor, and we heard about it one Sunday afternoon.
(04:18):
We got the word when they turned the radio on
that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. I was in training
in San Diego, flying a primary trainer. After graduating from
flying school, the second Lieutenant Palace would be assigned to
different bass. My instructor in the advanced training school recommended
(04:43):
that I become an instructor. So all my World War
two flying career I was in the training command instructing
other students how to fly an airplane. We lost a
large number of palace, student Palace and instructor Palace to
training accidents during the war. They were in such a
(05:06):
rush to get the palace to the front because we
needed them badly there, and so the program was accelerated
to the point that it really was quite dangerous. And
I flew B twenty fives for over two years instructing
in the advanced phase of the Fine training program, and
(05:27):
I loved that airplane. It was a bomber and a
very effective one. At the end of the war, I
was assigned to training in the B seventeen. I reported
to my training base for B seventeen training about three
days after they dropped the first atomic bomb. So then
(05:48):
then they dropped the second one, and the war was over.
I went ahead and finished my training in the B seventeen,
but never got to use it, and I was separated
from the Air Corps shortly after that. In April of
nineteen fifty one, I was recalled to the Air Force
as they called it then, and I was assigned to
(06:10):
Carsviel Air Force Base in Fort Worth, flying the B
thirty six, our primary defense weapon against an attack by Russia.
We were on call twenty four hours a day. If
four had been declared, we would have loaded our atom
bomb in Fort Worth, Texas, flown to Goose Bay, Labrador,
(06:30):
refueled there, and then take off from there to bomb
our sign target in Russia. The B thirty six at
that time was the largest airplane in the world. It
was longer than a B twenty nine and a B
seventeen nosed the tail. That's a lot of airplane. We
had a crew of fifteen people, and I loved flying
(06:51):
that airplane. I had always wanted to fly the big airplane.
We would have had no publem with dropping a bomb,
although we knew what destruction it could cost. But I
think everybody in my squadron, certainly on my crew, had
accepted the fact that we signed up to defend our country,
(07:11):
and while that possibly meant the destruction and the loss
of life of many people, we were prepared mentally and
psychologically in every way to accomplish that. Fifty two years later,
in two thousand and four, my wife and I were
on a Russian cruise ship. We sailed from Saint Petersburg
(07:34):
to Moscow through the river and canal systems, and we
ducked on the northwest side of Moscow after stopping twice
in cities en route, to have minister to the physical
and spiritual needs of the Russian people. We had five
doctors on board the ship and ten nurses, and many
(07:54):
of the people would be street witnessing, giving away English Bibles,
Russian Bibles, Children's Bibles, and literature. The day after we
ducked in Moscow, we had a clinic there in a
schoolhouse on a site that was probably less than five
miles from where my target was in nineteen fifty two.
(08:19):
If war had broken out, I'm glad we didn't have
to drop the bomb to begin with, and I'm equally
glad that I was able to be a part of
a Christian group going to the very same area where
my target was fifty two years before taking them the
Christian witness and telling them about our Lord Jesus. It
(08:43):
was just a wonderful feeling to accomplish that, because instead
of dropping death and destruction from above, we were carrying
in the word of life on the horizontal plane, the
word of life, eternal life, abundant life available in Our
Lord Jesus. I met my wife at Oklahoma University. I
(09:05):
had attended my freshman year and another school, and I
enrolled at Oklahoma University, so I was a sophomore and
met her when she was a freshman. She was dating
another boy when I first met her my first year there,
and they were pretty steady. It took a year or two,
but finally we became engaged. But one night I woke
(09:28):
up in a deep depressive frame of mind because I
had dreamed that she was marrying him and I was
attending their wedding, and that had a profound effect on
me for a few days, a week or two, because
I just couldn't stand the thought of losing her.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
The story of Orville Rogers continues more after these messages,
and we continue here with our American stories, and after
(10:13):
flying the B thirty six on secret missions. During the
Cold War, Orville Rogers became a commercial airline pilot and
a missionary pilot for Whycliffe Bible Translators. In this segment,
you'll also be hearing from Orville's doctor, Kenneth Cooper, founder
and chairman of the Cooper Institute. By the way, doctor
Cooper is also my doctor. Let's continue with Orvil Rodgers' story.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I always enjoyed knowing that I was delivering people for
their destinations safely and comfortably well. I flew for BRANAF
for a little over thirty years, and I loved it.
I would have flown for nothing, but I was glad
they paid me for it. Benefit Airlines started out with
(11:00):
a root structure that only included two cities, Oklahoma City
in Tulsa. It was a singling an airplane where they
soon graduated to the d C three and they were
flying from Dallas to Chicago and gradually expanding. Started out
on the DC three and flew the convert three forty
and four forty and it was taken over by the
(11:24):
DC six series, and then we had a d C
seven and then eventually got up to the DC eight
and then to the Boing seven. Twenty seven for most
of them a flying but I enjoyed flying the DC
eight to South America. It was a beautiful airplane. It
was a long range airplane. We flew it NonStop from
(11:46):
New York to Buenos Aires. It was a ten hour
and twenty minute flight, and I think it was the
longest NonStop flight in the airline business at the time.
We were flying it in nineteen seventy six. In nineteen
seventy seven, I really enjoyed that flight, but I enjoyed
all of South America. I met the founder of Wickcliffe,
(12:15):
William Cameron Towngen, in our church in nineteen sixty five,
and I volunteered to help out with Bible translation and
particularly the aviation part of it. And I realized that
while I had about maybe a dozen Bibles in my house,
there were people groups of the world that didn't not
have one word of God's word in their own native language.
(12:39):
Just felt like I could be of service in God's
kingdom by helping deliver airplanes to the translators around the
world who were there aiding the cause of Bible translation
by the safe, efficient transportation where the ruads were difficult
(13:00):
or impossible. Well, I delivered forty six missionary airplanes in
my career. They were challenging because you don't go down
to the filling station and by a road map. You
have to be prepared for the over ocean flying, which
(13:20):
means the airplane must be equipped with additional radio equipment,
it must have additional fuel for the long flights, either
Europe or Africa, or Southeast Asia or wherever you may
be going. Because you look on a globe or a
map at the Pacific Ocean and you see islands scattered
(13:41):
all around everywhere. But when you get out there and
fly it, you can fly for hours and hours and
never see an island. So if the radio station on
that island went out, or if you had difficulty with
your receiver, you'd be on your own looking for throughout
(14:01):
that vast expanse of water to find that tiny little
dot of an island down there. So this grave concern
to be able to navigate successfully. Took my first ferry
flight for George in nineteen sixty five. About a year
or two later they put me on their board and
(14:21):
I was on their board for thirty nine years. That's remarkable,
I can't believe it. And three or four years later,
the board chairman retired and they made me chairman of
the board. So I was chairman of the board for
thirteen of those thirty nine years. And it was a
delight to serve God that way. And let me tell
(14:42):
you about the climax of every missionary fly ferry flight.
When you taxi into the ramp, opened the door, and
hand the keys to the airplane to the missionary pilot.
Already there is going to be flying that airplane in
the work of Bible translation. I read a book by
(15:05):
doctor Kenneth Cooper when I was in Chicago on a
layover from our brand of Fairways flight and I literally
read it through in almost one sitting, and it was
a highly motivational book. I started running the next day,
and I've run a little over forty two five hundred
miles in the last fifty years.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Your feet are in remarkably good condition for a person
who has run for as long as you. Then a
person is good for a man of any age.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Okay, real deep.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
So he has a two and half inch expansion, which
is very good. Don't let me push it out, houte
it real tight, real tight, real tight. And that's like iron.
You have very good quads of muscles straight. Yeah, at
one hundred years of age, you're like a man about sixty,
So you slow down the aging processes. You know, there's
very few people pass one hundred years of age who
(16:04):
can begin to keep up with you, even be alive
as you know.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Yeah, my objectives is slow down. That's slowly as possible.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Slow down as slowly as possible. And you've proven to
what I've said for years is fastening. No, that one
can grow healthier as one grows older and not necessarily
reverse who determines that you do. Here, you're one hundred
years of age, eighty seven years of age to practicing
medicine every day. So we're enjoying life the fullest of
our goal for you and for me both and live
(16:33):
that long, healthy life of fullest and then die suddenly.
We call that squaring off the curve. And you've already
passed that. But you know, as we tell people coming
dur Clink, we call them getting couper ized by all
the recommendations we give to our patients, over one hundred
and forty five thousand patients. Now, if you follow recommendations
for a diet and wait and exercise all the various
things that we recommend that you should live ten years longer.
(16:55):
In the national average, that would mean you should live
eighty seven years. I'm already eighty seven, trying to prove
that did you wait beyond that?
Speaker 2 (17:03):
I started running early on with a group called the
Country Club of Dallas, and it was competitive, but in
a friendly way, and I gradually outgrew the group. I
aged them, and I looked around and the world records
seemed to be attainable. So a little over ten years
ago now, when I was approaching ninety, I looked up
(17:26):
the world records for the one mile and the eight
hundred meters. I said, maybe I can do that. So
I engaged the trainer and he coached me on starting
and breathing and pacing, and I went to Boston. Ten
years ago I ran the eight hundred meters in world
record time. I think I broke the record by bt
to thirty seconds, but I really slaughtered the mile. I
(17:49):
think the record was eleven minutes for some seconds, and
I attacked it vigorously and finished with a time under
ten minutes. I think it was nine fifty seven something
or other. And I'm still the only man in the
world that had run a ten minute mile after the
age of ninety.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
In March this year, I attended the National Indoor Championship
Meet near Washington, DC. It was a track and field meet.
I entered five running events ranging from sixty meters up
to fifteen hundred meters, and I had no competition, so
(18:29):
I got gold records just by showing up and shooting up, starting,
and finishing. But the I sing only cake was that
I was able to set five new world records, one
for each of the five events that I entered. So
I now hold or have set eighteen world records. I
think two or three of them have been broken, but
(18:52):
I have set eighteen world records officially.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And what a story this is Orville Rogers story, And
we like to thank the folks at Vision Video for
giving us access to their wonderful documentary Flying High for
the Glory of God, The Orville Rogers Story. Check out
their full documentary and the nineteen hundred more titles of
uplifting family friendly videos at Vision video dot com. Orval Rodgers'
(19:21):
story continues here on our American Stories, and we returned
to the story of Orvill Rogers and is doctor Kenneth Cooper,
(19:42):
founder and chairman of the Cooper Institute, located in Orville's
hometown of Dallas, Texas. But both of these guys, well
they come and hail from Oklahoma. We will also be
hearing from Orville's daughter Susan, his sons Rick and Bill,
and his great grandson. Let's begin with Doc ken Cooper.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
First of all, it's not that amazing anymore. People live
pasted one hundred years. They're becoming quite that's quite readily know.
But people passed one hundred years of ature still competing
athletically the running events. That is extremely unus for one
out of a million, I would so orble has he's
had his problems. He was a marathon runner. Nor when
I first met him at age fifty four, that's forty
(20:21):
six years ago. By his first examination here at the
Flank in nineteen seventy one. I followed him every year
after that too. But what has happened is he said
some medical problems. Back in nineteen ninety three, all of
a sudden we discovered he had severe corners lease without
anh spain whatsoever. When he had a six special cornery
bypass procedure. It was nineteen ninety three. Then in twenty eleven.
(20:42):
He had a major stroke that occurred in twenty eleven,
but he's the only capacitor for thirty days.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
He say, I'll back running again. One aspect of my
running is that it gives me a platform to speak
a word for my Lord Jesus. I became a Christian
when I was ten years old, and I've tried to
follow my Lord for ninety years now. I've running races
where people alongside me or near me would falter just
(21:10):
a little bit as they approached the finish line two
or three or four or five yards. It seemed like
they were saying to themselves, there's the finish line. I've
made it, and they kind of relax and slow down
a little bit. That's not my style. I would have
powered through, running to the very end of the table,
(21:31):
and it served me well. A year ago in Albuquerque,
I was running against a ninety four year old man
and he just two of us in the sixty meter race,
and he cut off to a fast start. I don't
have fast twitch muscles, which enables a fast start in running,
and so he was three or four yards ahead of
(21:52):
me almost immediately. But I kept plugging away and maintaining
the pace that I thought would be applicable to that distance,
and he must have slowed down because I certainly wasn't
speeding up. But I began gaining on him with the
halfway mark, and at the finish line I leaned forward
(22:14):
just enough to beat him by five hundreds of one second.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
There's a magazine order that came out with a statement
that we had met five times after that race, and
I beat him every time.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
And Uh, I.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Don't want to slow down at the finish line. I
don't want to be disqualified by not serving my Lord
well all through every day of my life, I would
have finished strong for my Lord, don't you. I hope
you enjoy life as much as I do. I love life.
MM My son was a marine helicopter pilot and was
(22:57):
on a rescue mission and in nineteen seventy and was
killed when they ran into very adverse weather conditions in
the extraction process. Well, God can use any experience of
life to the benefit. And one of the good things
that came out of this was a realization that Courteous
(23:19):
lived a wonderful life and he died in service for
our country and if it had to happen, that was
the best way he could. My advice to anyone in
a similar situation with me that God is still in control.
He knows what is happening, and he can control in control,
(23:40):
and he can be relied upon to supply you comfort
and help any time is needed. My wife and I've
served for thirteen months in Tanzania. I had a beautiful
sess not two ten, flying over Tanzania, which is his
biggest extras and part of New Mexico. The interesting part
(24:03):
about that trip was when we left Honolulu, I had
not explained to my wife that radio waves or straight
line just like sunlight, and once you fly about one
hundred miles or so, depending on your altitude away from
your home departure station, you lose radio contact. So I
(24:24):
was halfway to Johnston Island or so and trying to
work anybody that would talk to me, and nobody would
talk to me. I wanted to make a position report,
and since that maybe she was getting a little bit
nervous about the situation because I was using the loudspaker
and she could hear the conversation. So I took off
my headset and laid it down and put my bike down.
(24:46):
I reached over and gave her a big hug, and
I said, Honey, when you married me, did you ever
think you'd be having this much fun? She didn't hit me.
I'm free to express my life story in that manner
if my viewers understand that I'm doing it as a
(25:09):
Christian witness. I want no glory for it. I want
no commendation for it. But I found out early in
life that it would be wise to save us money
as possible and invest it so that in the future
I could be a vehicle for helping God's work, bringing
his kingdom to earth from heaven, as he asked us
(25:33):
to do. And so I got interested in investing. I
invested in the stock market in land and holding gas
and God blessing that if people ask me how did
I do that, I say I did not do it.
God did it. And it was our privilege an ISSI
(25:53):
my wife's death to give away over thirty five million
dollars to God's work.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
I knew that Dad flew a lot, but it never
felt like he missed important things like piano recitals or
football games or anything.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
And he's getting us back for that now, like we're
going to this track. Meets and interviews and banquets and birthdays, so.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
Every day's a gift. And I think he is one
that really epitomizes that. I mean, he knows it. Every
day's every day, every year, and it just it gives
us a great sense of purpose and looking toward the future.
And I think that's the way he's made it from
ninety two one hundred for sure.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
I remember when he first realized he couldn't run a
sub ten in.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
A mile anymore. And my friends in their.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Sixties all say, I can't run a sub ten a mile,
and there in the sixties, they can't remember when they
could run a sub ten in a mile, so it's
pretty fun.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
We try to keep him humble. I mean I tell
him all the time that I could do what he
does and be in the newspaper the next day too,
But the only probably is I'd be in the obituary
section and he's in the sports section.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
One of my big memories of my dad and my
mom was looking in their bedroom and seeing them on
their knees praying.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
It was regular and not for show.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
They were prayerful people and made it just a core
to their life, and they're always reading the Bible well.
And they prayed through the missionary prayer list, which I
don't know if it bothered them. It made me kind
of crazy sometimes, but they prayed for every Southern Baptist
missionary on their birthday throughout the whole year. It was
pretty amazing discipline.
Speaker 4 (27:29):
I'm in track right now in I just think that
it's great having a grandpa that is one hundred and
running tracks.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
So when I run, I just think about them a lot.
Speaker 6 (27:41):
So I just think that's great.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
My dad and my mom wanted to be with us
on vacations. There's a lot of people that talk to
them and say, what you know, that's not a vacation
if your kids and grandkids are there. But he started
it over thirty years ago, and we go on fabulous
trips every summer. And it's a job now coordinating that
many people.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
So it's over.
Speaker 5 (28:00):
Thirty people for over thirty years going together someplace crazy
anywhere from the North Pool to Antarctica. It's Europe Africa
that they've been an amazing way for this family to bond.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
I enjoy reading and studying Hebrews twelve one and two
because Paul speaks there running as being a metaphor for living,
and I think I can quoted it says, Therefore, since
we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
(28:38):
let us cast aside every weight and the sin which
does so easily beset us. Let us run within durans
the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus,
the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the
joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising
(28:59):
the shame. And here'sforth is set down at the right
hand of the strong of God.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
And what a story we just heard. What a life
well lived in his hundreds and still running and running
being a metaphor for life, his faith a fundamental part
of his life. The kid's vision of the parents sitting
in that room, kneeling down and praying for other people.
And we tell their stories here on this show, just
as we tell everyone's stories. Faith, no faith, no difference
(29:28):
to us, beautiful stories or beautiful stories. That he gave
away thirty five million dollars that he'd made investing because
he didn't think it was his. My goodness, what a
story to tell by itself, And what a heart, what
a generous heart, and by the way that he lived
so long. You know, we do a lot of these
stories about living longer and cutting down costs and living better.
(29:54):
These are stories that the Cooper Clinic has turned us onto.
Ken Cooper's life work WORL with Chuck Stetson in his
family office, better living at lower cost, and my goodness,
this story is a metaphor for all of those things.
Orville Rogers' story here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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