Dr. Roger Glen Wells

1940 - 2023

The Honorable Dr. Roger Glen Wells of Hampstead, NH, died peacefully of natural causes on August 10, 2023, at the age of 83 in Bar Harbor, Maine. For more than four decades, "Doc" Wells was the owner and lead veterinarian of his successful "Equine Medicine and Surgery," which operated on multiple East Coast racetracks from Maine to Florida. His was the leading veterinary practice at Rockingham Park in Salem, NH, from 1984 to its closing.

Dr. Wells, born May 25, 1940, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a 1958 graduate of Will Rogers High School in Tulsa and a 1965 graduate of the Oklahoma State University Veterinary Medical School. Roger was proud to be an "Okie" with family who were "Boomers" in the Land Run of 1893 and some of the earliest settlers of Tulsa.

Roger's life motto was "Fortune favors the brave." After four years of working as a "country vet" in Vinita, OK, he started his racetrack practice in 1969 at Scarborough Downs in Maine. His racetrack practice took him to interesting and diverse places such as the Pocono Mountains, the Amish country of Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes of New York, and Clearwater, Florida. In the 1970s and 1980s, he owned the "Rocking RW" 400 acre hereford cattle and thoroughbred horse ranch in Oklahoma, and for several years, Roger was the owner and self-proclaimed Governor of Pine Island, a private island on Big Island Pond in Atkinson, NH.

After his retirement from active veterinary practice, Roger served for three years on the Hampstead School Board and six years in the NH House of Representatives. He was passionate about public service and loved being active in the political process. He was a cosponsor of the first NH bill to legalize cannabis, and his proudest accomplishment was his active role in the development of the state suicide prevention protocol. Roger served four terms as the treasurer for the New England chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and for over 20 years as a cofacilitator of a weekly support group for survivors of suicide loss.

Roger was predeceased by his daughter, Jennifer, in 1985 and by two wives, Ann Marie in 1969 and Leslie in 2009. He is survived by two sons, Daniel Wells of NH and Nathaniel Wells of Las Vegas, NV, and by one daughter, Hannah Miller of Groton, MA. He was a proud "papa" to his seven grandchildren, whom he described as his "best gift to the world." Family and his many close and supportive friends were the most important thing in Roger's life, and his was a "death well earned by a life well lived."

The life of Dr. Roger Wells will be celebrated in Hampstead on Saturday, September 2, from 11:00 to 3:00 with sharing of memories and music at 1:00 p.m. Friends are invited to come, stay or go as they are able. Casual dress. For directions or further details, contact rockinrw@aol.com. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Roger's memory to the New Hampshire chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness: NAMI NH, 85 N. State Street, Concord, NH 03301 or online at NAMINH.org/donate.