The A-rated Collier County Public Schools’ newest high school will be named for former Sheriff Aubrey Rogers. His commitment to the community’s children and teens led him to establish the Collier County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) Youth Relations program in 1977, introducing the then-groundbreaking concept of putting deputies on school campuses. School board members considered suggestions submitted from the community and selected the name during the Regular School Board Meeting held on September 12, 2022, at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Administrative Center.
Sheriff Rogers was also instrumental in founding the Collier County Junior Deputy League in the 1960s, bringing opportunities for children to go camping and to be mentored by deputies. Later, he helped establish the Junior Deputy Day at the Collier County Fair, a tradition that continues today. Also fitting is that the school’s mascot will be the Patriots, a name that aligns with Sheriff Rogers’ service in the U.S. Army.
Sheriff Rogers was born in Fort Myers on August 27, 1926, and later moved to Naples in 1957 at the age of 31 years old. Early in his high school life, Rogers began to think about a career in law enforcement. He, as a child, had a great uncle who was a U.S. Marshal and a best friend’s father who was a policeman. They greatly influenced his future in law enforcement, so in 1948, at the age of 22, he went to work for the Fort Myers Police Department, which at that time had only a handful of officers. In 1957, then Collier County Sheriff E. A. Doug Hendry hired Rogers to work in the Everglades jail. When he began his career as a deputy at CCSO, Rogers earned 74 cents an hour. He eventually became Sheriff Hendry’s chief deputy. On November 19, 1975, then-Florida Gov. Reuben Askew appointed Rogers as sheriff of Collier County, replacing Hendry, who had resigned. Rogers served as sheriff until 1989. He was 83 when he died March 10, 2010.
When Aubrey Rogers High School, located in North Naples, opens to students in August of 2023, it will be the first new high school to open in Collier in 19 years. To learn more, including the timeline for selecting the school’s enrollment boundary, the principal assigned to lead Aubrey Rogers High School, and video updates from the construction zone, you may visit www.collierschools.com/arh.
Original source can be found here.
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