Sheila Leslie

Jim Rogers, higher education advocate

No one suffered fools less gladly than Jim Rogers. But it’s difficult to think of another person who valued education more, or contributed so much of his wealth to back up his words. Rogers died from cancer on June 14 at the age of 75. He was a by self-made businessman, amassing a Sheila Leslie huge fortune through the creation of a regional media empire spanning five Western states. At its height, he owned 14 television stations, including Reno’s KRNV. Jim was a serious philanthropist, donating hundreds of millions of dollars to educational institutions in the West. He gave so much to the University of Arizona College of Law—$137 million—that they named the school after him. He gave $20 million to the Idaho State University Foundation and $28.5 million to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas law school. Altogether he contributed over $60 million to Nevada schools. As a legislator, I encountered Rogers when he was appointed to serve as the chancellor of our higher education system in 2005. He worked for nothing, insisting his real salary be donated back to support education.

He followed me back to my office one day after a Ways and Means (budget) Committee hearing where he sat patiently in the audience listening to testimony about the holes in the higher education budget. He asked me how the budget could be increased to fund more of the enhancements he believed were necessary for student success.

When I told him not much was likely to happen unless he could help us figure out how to get the other party to have a serious discussion about creating a corporate tax in Nevada, he unleashed a tirade of four-letter words so loudly his staff hurried to shut the door before a lurking reporter could capture them.

“Do you know how much I pay in taxes on my television stations in Montana?” he railed. He quickly drew me a diagram of the Western states, explaining the kind of taxes he paid in each of them and then placed a large zero over Nevada. “Tax me, please!” he shouted.

I was taken aback by his abrasive and confrontational style, something that’s frowned upon in the legislative building where persuasive efforts are usually hidden behind closed doors or over cozy expensive dinners or golf games. I told him I was supportive of his goals and even his proposed method of raising the necessary money, but he’d have to convince the “no new taxes ever” contingent if any of it were to happen.

That statement produced another spout of foul language, but then he thanked me and abruptly left in pursuit of others who needed more convincing.

He expected people to listen to him not because he was rich, but because he was right.

Rogers stepped down as the volunteer chancellor in 2009 after a very public fight with Governor Jim Gibbons. Many felt he overstepped professional boundaries when he wrote an op-ed criticizing Gibbons for proposing a 36 percent decrease in higher education funding referring to the Governor as “a greedy, uninterested, unengaged human being whose only goal, and I mean only goal, is to see what Gibbons can do for himself and his greedy friends.”

Rogers kept up with the times, embracing Twitter enthusiastically, a communications medium no other multi-millionaire his age could imagine. His daily tweets featured his vigorous advocacy for education right up until his death. I chuckled reading one unfiltered message posted on June 6 because I could hear him saying it out loud:

“I can’t say the Board of Regents accomplishes nothing, but it must invest 10 dollars of its time for each dollar it gets from the Nevada legislature, which has done more to stifle Nevada’s growth than any other organized group of incompetent people.”

Jim, we miss you already. Ω