Reverend Dr. Billy Wilson Rodgers, 87, a retired college professor and Episcopal priest, died of natural causes on August 22, 2020. He was the husband of the late Helen Irene Rodgers, his beloved wife of 67 years. He lived in Frederick, Maryland, from 1970 to 2004, and returned in 2019. During much of their retirement, he and Helen lived in Summerfield, Florida.

Dr. Rodgers was born October 17, 1932 in Erick, Oklahoma, to the late Henry Wilson Rodgers and Thelma Colston Rodgers.

He served in the Oklahoma National Guard and attended Oklahoma State University prior to moving to California. He was a graduate of Los Angeles City College, where he earned an associate degree and was a graduate of California State University at Los Angeles, where he received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in history. He later received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he specialized in Greek and biblical studies. He then became a Fellow and Tutor and earned a Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) at the General Theological Seminary in New York City. He taught Greek there for two years and then began a teaching position in 1961at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Caribbean, located in Puerto Rico. He later became a professor of philosophy and religion at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. In 1970 he became Professor of Humanities at Frederick Community College, from which he retired in 1995 as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College. Over the years he also studied at the University of Puerto Rico, the University of the Andes, Harvard University, Kenyon College and the University of Maryland. While on sabbatical in 1990, he lectured at St. Peter’s College of Oxford University.