Will Rogers In 1947, a college football bowl game was named in his honor, but the event folded after the first year. The Academy of Western Artists, based in Gene Autry, Oklahoma, presents an annual Will Rogers Medallion award for excellence in western literature. The Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun is the name of an 80-foot observation tower on Cheyenne Mountain west of Colorado Springs, at the base of Pikes Peak near the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Rogers's California home, stables, and polo fields are preserved today for public enjoyment as Will Rogers State Historic Park in Pacific Palisades. His widow, Betty,
Will Rogers (Davidson) which time Davidson had frequently attempted to convince Rogers to pose for him, and Rogers had always put it off, referring to Davidson as “you old head-hunter.” Davidson prepared for the commission by requesting Fox Films, for whom Rogers had made many films, (Rogers had acted in dozens of movies, 50 silent and 21 sound) to loan him films that he then screened in his Paris studio, where Davidson “worked, talked and lived nothing but Will Rogers”. He next procured the service of a model built roughly like Rogers and modeled him in clay, nude. He then asked Mrs. Rogers