James A. Leach: “If ever an individual personified the ideal that the human condition can overcome any handicap, it was Tom Rogers. Tom…”

“If ever an individual personified the ideal that the human condition can overcome any handicap, it was Tom Rogers. Tom was everybody's all-American boy. An active athlete and budding scholar, Tom left Moline in 1952 to attend Cornell University. At the end of his freshman year at the age of 19, just before the widespread introduction of the Salk vaccine, he was struck so severely with polio that he was paralyzed from the neck down. He came to be able to breathe only through the laborious technique of swallowing air. In a circumstance which would have led most of us to give up, to turn inward in bitterness, to be prone to shriveling up and spiritually dying, Tom took the opposite course. He determined that even though he could not move a finger, he would widen his horizons and become a functioning member of society. Tom studied to become a stock analyst and broker and soon had as dedicated a following as anyone in his profession in the country.”