James Rogers find resemblance
in Oklahoma kin

By PAT REEDER CLAREMORE — Until August 15, James Schneider Rogers, great-grandson of Will Rogers, thought he was the only one in his family with red hair … well, really more a strawberry blonde.      “I have had this fear when I am here for the reunion (a family gathering is planned in Claremore November 3-4) when it’s over Joe Carter is going to stand up and say ‘by the way it’s time everyone knew, James is adopted,’” he said with a grimace.      Then he met the youngest member of cousin Trent’s clan, Sadie, Herb (Herbert Vann) McSpadden’s baby daughter. She has the same strawberry blonde locks. Herb’s father, Herbert Trent, was born and raised on he Will Rogers Ranch, where James’ grandfather and Trent's great-uncle, Will Rogers, was born in 1879.      Born November 28, 1960, in Hereford, Texas, James is the son of Kem and Nancy Joanne Schneider Rogers. Kem represents the family on the Will Rogers Memorial Commission, taking the reins from his father, Jim.      Kem was in the feed lot business, and James grew up in Tucumcari, N.M.; Amarillo, Texas; and Bakersfield, Calif. He started school in Amarillo, then returned to California in eighth grade. He graduated from Bakersfield High School and junior college and earned a degree in business from San Diego State.      He still calls San Diego home and works at the UPS Store headquarters, formerly Mail Boxes Etc., as a project manager.      James came to Claremore in August with his Uncle Chuck Rogers for the Will Rogers-Wiley Post fly-in marking the anniversary of their death in an Alaskan plane crash. It was his third visit to the Claremore museum, his first in 22 years.      Several of his cousins from the Lane-McSpadden families were there for the occasion, the first time he had met many of them. The Lanes-McSpaddens are descendant’s of Will’s sisters, Maude Ethel Lane and Sallie McSpadden.      “The first time I was here I was about six and my cousins locked me out of the museum during a ceremony in the rotunda. Scott and Josh [Leuty, sons of his aunt, Bette Rogers Brandin] shut me out and said Will was after me,” he said. “I was scared, really scared.”      He recalled the incident almost three decades later when Michelle Lefebvre-Carter, Will Rogers Memorial Commission executive director, took him into the sarcophagus, where the remains of his grandparents and great-grandparents are entombed.      His first real recollection of his Oklahoma Cherokee family was in 1982 at a “nice family gathering. It was kind of overwhelming. Outside of first and second cousins, all these people are your relatives.”      He remembers playing with Bart McSpadden, a cousin he is looking forward to seeing in November.      “Lots of people know more about my family than I do and they are in this building,” he said on a visit to the museum.      What he remembers best about the 1982 visit was riding in Bob Roden’s Rolls Royce.      Admittedly it was when Will Rogers at the Follies opened on Broadway that James recognized his great-grandfather was “someone special.”      Not quite a teenager then, he said he “really realized the impact of his (Will’s) importance when we went to New York for the Follies and people came up to me asking for my autograph.      “We had [sister Jennifer was with him] to keep it in perspective. We didn’t do anything. He did it. We saw the residuals of his family growing up, always being around pictures and books, talking about what was going on at the memorials. The legacies in both states, here and at the park in California, have always been topics for discussion.”      Instead of riding horses James rides a bike. “As a kid I never took to dressing up and parading around with a horse,” he said, although he is from a horse family on both sides. His maternal grandfather, Frank Schneider, was a champion bull and saddle bronc rider, his paternal grandfather, Jim Rogers, raised show horses.      James’ focus has been on triathlons, “usually every weekend.”      “I’m kind of shifting focus,” he said, “more interested in family. I want to help my dad and uncle, take more interest in the museums. I am proud of the way the Claremore museum has been maintained, the grounds and building.      “It gives me great pride to say I’m a Rogers. There’s not a lot of people can trace their roots this deep and to one great individual.      “I met him through by grandfather [Jim Rogers]. I have a lot of respect for him. He was an amazing person, somebody I could go to for answers … well sometimes a question. He would never make up my mind for me, but would often say … ‘well when I was your age.’”