Ashton Gustafson | Let The Music Play

Pilot and world champion runner Orville Rogers trained bomber pilots in World War II, flew the B-36 on secret missions during the Korean Conflict, ferried airplanes to remote Baptist missions all over the world, and managed to squeeze in a thirty-one-year career as a pilot with Braniff Airways. After retirement, he and Esther Beth, his wife of sixty-four–plus years, served thirteen months with the Baptist Mission in Tanzania. With her help on the ground, he flew goods and passengers to outposts largely inaccessible by land. Orville took up running at age fifty-one and ran his first marathon six years later. At age ninety, just two weeks after Beth’s passing, he attended his first national meet, where he broke two world records. He holds fifteen world records to date and continues to compete annually. Invariably, he wins. He has two sons, Bill and Rick, and a daughter, Susan, as well as, nine grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. He lives in Dallas, Texas.