Will Rogers Memorial Restoration
Rededication Ceremony

Kicks off 63rd annual Lake City Summer Festival and Pioneer Days
Saturday, Aug. 6, 2005, 9:30-10 a.m.
Albert Davis Park, NE 27th Ave. Seattle (Lake City)
All events open to the public

Will Rogers renowned humorist, philanthropist, author and star of radio, stage and screen played polo in Lake City 70 years ago Saturday. Eleven days later — on Aug. 17, 1935 – Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post were dead in a plane crash in Alaska. While Wiley was having pontoons fitted on his plane in Renton for the trip to Alaska — Moscow was the eventual destination —  the late Royal Brougham, Seattle Post Intelligencer columnist. arranged a polo match at the then Olympic Riding and Driving Club. That night Will attended a polo club dinner at the Washington Athletic Club. After the crash, in 1938, Brougham was the leading force behind creation of a memorial placed at the match site. Almost destroyed by purchases of the old site, it was moved and saved, but part of it was missing. Through help of the Will Rogers Museums in Claremore, Will Rogers Institute of California and polo enthusiasts (Will as inducted into the National Polo Hall of Fame this year), the missing mallet and hat was reattached and the memorial restored. Members of the Rogers family and Todd Vradenburg from the Institute will attend the ceremony starting at 9:30. Lori Blake-Leighton of Ferndale (Wash.), great –granddaughter of Will’s wife, Betty, will join her cousin, Will’s grandson, Chuck Rogers of Cave Creek, Ariz., for the ceremony. Blake-Leighton’s great-grandfather, James Kay (Sandy) Blake was Will’s tour manager during his lecture tours and managed his Beverly Hills office. Chuck Rogers was a professional polo player until his retirement and trains an occasional polo pony. Blake-Leighton, who was 13 before she realized she was a relative of someone so important as Will Rogers, is researching for books about Will and Betty Rogers and the Blake family,