City Mourns Loss of Dale Rogers, Farmer, Entrepreneur; Died at 74

Dale F. Rogers.

The community is mourning the loss of Dale F. Rogers, a local farmer and entrepreneur who was active in many local civic groups. He died Tuesday at age 74.

In 1964, Rogers joined his father and brother in the family business at Spring Hill Farm Dairy. During the early 1980s, he became a local pioneer in the bottled water business, founding Spring Hill Pure Natural Spring Water, which distributed spring water to major supermarkets in the northeast. In 1987, he further launched Rogers–Associates, a company supplying milk and cream to large dairy firms.

A lifelong resident of Ward Hill, he was a more than 40-year member of the Haverhill Rotary Club with perfect attendance and a two-time Rotary Paul Harris Fellow. He was also a director of the Haverhill YMCA, a trustee of Bradford’s Elmwood Cemetery in Bradford and a member of Saggahew Lodge of Free Masonry for more than 50 years and the Aleppo Temple Shrine.

The son of Harold B. and Beatrice F. Rogers, he was born March 16, 1944. He attended Knipe and Greenleaf Elementary Schools and was in the last class to attend the Haverhill High School Annex before it burned in 1959, and graduated from Haverhill High School on Summer Street with the class of 1962. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire Thompson School of Agriculture in 1964. In 1968, he married his wife Marcia Babson.

At an early age he joined the Boy Scouts of America Troop 7, and the Essex county 4-H Tractor Club. Before he was 16, he had won two awards being a part of this club at the Topsfield Fair. At the age of 37, Rogers took up skiing to be able to ski with his two sons. In doing this he became a skiing enthusiast. He graduated from the Killington Ski School for Instructors and skied at most of the ski resorts in North America, Europe and New Zealand. He was a member and director of the New Hampshire Ski Club for many years and a recipient of the New Hampshire Ski Club’s Ken Preve Pride award. He also loved being out in the woods with friends riding his ATV and belonged to the Sandy River ATV club of Strong, Maine. As a draft horse admirer, he belonged to the Yankee Draft Horse Association. In 2002, he traveled to Wisconsin where he rode the last 40-horse hitch wagon pulled in the Circus Parade of Milwaukee with the famous teamster Dick Sparrow of Zearing, Iowa.

Besides his wife Marcia; Rogers leaves sons Harold B. and his wife Susan Rogers and Dale F. and his fiancé Mary Stabile; grandchildren, Madison, Abbigale, Parker, Dale F III and R. Jude Rogers; siblings, Richard and his wife Betty Rogers and Sherrill and her husband Richard Lentini; and many nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews.

Visiting hours are Monday, Feb. 11, from 4 to 8 p.m., at Driscoll Funeral Home, 309 S. Main St., Haverhill. He will be laid to rest in a private family service in Elmwood Cemetery, Salem Street, Haverhill. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, 230 East Ohio St., Suite 500, Chicago, IL 60611, the Haverhill Rotary Club, P.O. Box 808, Haverhill, MA 01831 and the Highpoint Hospice House, 360 North Avenue, Haverhill, MA 01830.