Will Rogers (Davidson) to send him some of Rogers worn clothes, which “still contained his personality,” which she did, and they were modeled on the nude clay. When he had completed the life-sized clay model, he made a plaster cast and sent it to the Valsuani foundry in Paris, where two casts were made, one for the National Statuary Hall Collection and the other for the Will Rogers Memorial, then recently opened in Claremore, Oklahoma, near Rogers birthplace. When that statue was unveiled, president Franklin Delano Roosevelt broadcast a message live on coast-to-coast radio from his home in Hyde Park. The plaster cast
Will Rogers Institute Will Rogers Institute The Will Rogers Institute's mission is to perpetuate the memory of Will Rogers by promoting and engaging in medical research pertaining to cardiopulmonary diseases and educating the public on topics of health and fitness. It is named for actor and comedian Will Rogers, who died in a plane crash in 1935. The Institute supports research programs that study debilitating pulmonary disorders and provides pulmonary rehabilitation at academic and medical centers across the country and provides neonatal ventilators to needy hospitals so not one baby suffers or dies because of the lack of a proper ventilation system. For