This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Rodgers, Brewster; Grimmett, Babiarz Klopotic, Mroczkowski Classification: Obituary Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/hgDBAIB/1667 Message Board Post: Rodgers ruled polka His orchestra was popular on radio, TV By AMY RABIDEAU SILVERS asilvers@journalsentinel.com Posted: Jan. 30, 2004 When polka was king - playing to packed ballrooms and on the airwaves - one man from Pulaski was known as the "Polka King." Obituary His Dick Rodgers Orchestra played live on the radio in Marinette, before appearing on WMBV-TV in Marinette in 1955. When the station moved to Green Bay as WLUK-TV, the program moved, too. At the height of the orchestra's popularity, the program was on 17 television stations throughout the Midwest, sometimes appearing right before Green Bay Packers games. Dick Rodgers - no one ever called him Richard - kept playing until he suffered a stroke in 1995. He died of cancer Jan. 22 at his home in Pulaski. Rodgers was 76. "Dick Rodgers was as big a person in the polka world as Frankie Yankovic, probably bigger in Wisconsin," said John Pinter, president of the Wisconsin Polka Boosters. "All polka music in the state goes back to Dick Rodgers," he said. "It starts with him. He was an icon." Rodgers began his orchestra in 1945, while a senior at Pulaski High School. Principal Frank Joswick let the polka boys play in the school gym during the lunch hour, said Joan Rodgers, the musician's wife. In 1949, Dick Rodgers' group recorded its first two records for the Pastel label in Chicago. Those were 78s, with the "Josie Polka" and "Let's Be Happy Polka" on one record, and the "Who Loves You Polka" and "Good Humor Laendler" on the other. Other labels and records followed, a total of 14, with later updates to cassette and CD formats. The orchestra had a 10-year contract with Decca records. On television, "The Dick Rodgers Show" went from a half-hour to a full hour. It would later appear on WBAY-TV in Green Bay, before returning to WLUK-TV. The show continued until 1978, a total of 23 years. "When we were recording the shows, people would come from all over the state and the U.P.," Joan Rodgers said. "It was so much fun." The orchestra also toured outside the Midwest, as far as Florida and Connecticut and Hawaii, and internationally in places such as Austria, Switzerland and Germany. "He had a good band, and he was very popular," said Greg Leider, who was involved in selling the orchestra's music. "He tried to keep polka music going." It was the music that Rodgers grew up on. His father, Joe Rodgers, had a polka band for 20 years until 1945. As a boy, Dick took piano lessons and taught himself to play the drums and concertina, his wife said. He also took over the Rodgers Insurance Agency, started by his father in 1937. Steve Rodgers, one of his sons, now runs the business in Pulaski. "That was his day job," Joan Rodgers said of her husband. "But his music was the most important of the two. He loved playing." Rodgers was named to the International Polka Hall of Fame, the Wisconsin Polka Hall of Fame and the World Concertina Congress Hall of Fame. He was president of the National Association of Orchestra Leaders and charter president of the group's Wisconsin chapter. In 1967, he was named Orchestra Leader of the Year by the Wisconsin Orchestra Leaders Association. In addition to his wife and son Steve, survivors include daughter Christine Brewster; sons David and Thomas; sisters Irene Grimmett, Eleanor Babiarz and Joan Klopotic; stepsister Emily Mroczkowski; and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Services were this week in Pulaski. >From the Jan. 31, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel