Stephen Hitchcock Rogers

06/21/1930 - 07/27/2025

Stephen Hitchcock Rogers was a much loved husband, father, and grandfather, and a dedicated public servant. He was devoted to his wife of 61 years, Kent Brain Rogers, and their four children, and shared with them his desire to serve, his sense of adventure, and his love of music and lifelong learning.

Born in Flushing, New York, on June 21, 1930, Steve grew up on Long Island and in Lexington, Massachusetts. He knew even before he graduated from Port Washington (NY) High School that he wanted a career in the Foreign Service. After a Naval ROTC scholarship enabled a degree in public and international affairs at Princeton, he served for three years as navigator on a destroyer during the Korean War. While subsequently pursuing an MA in economics at Columbia, he met Kent at a French Club tea on campus. He proposed to her once he knew he had a job lined up with the U.S. State Department, and they soon married and moved to Washington, DC.

And then their shared life of service, and adventure, began. The Foreign Service took Steve, Kent, and their children not just to Washington, but to India, France, Cambridge (where Steve earned an MPA at Harvard), England, Mexico, South Africa, and finally Swaziland (now Eswatini), where Steve served as U.S. Ambassador. During his 37-year diplomatic career, he represented and advised on the policies of nine different presidential administrations, and he also taught economics at ICAF. His ability to engage with people in all walks of life and find them fascinating meant the diplomatic calling fit him beautifully.

In retirement, Steve and Kent returned to the house in Annandale, Virginia, that they had bought early in their marriage. Though now settled, they hardly stayed put: their love of adventure and learning took them on travels around the world for another quarter-century. They kept up their tradition of diving into the community, through active engagement with the church they had joined in 1957 and returned to again and again, with the neighborhood civic association, in the wider community, and through volunteer work in schools. Steve also served as a poll worker and captain in numerous elections, helped lead his Princeton alumni class, and advocated for positive political change.

Learning -- about people and places, history and nature -- kept Steve growing throughout his long life. He would find out as much as he could about the countries they lived in, memorize poetry on the Metro, and report on "All Things Considered" at the dinner table. He read long biographies, up until his last years. He was happy to quote Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" or Frost's "Mending Fences" well into his nineties. He was fascinated with birds, from the hoopoes of India and hadedas of Southern Africa to the cardinals and Carolina wrens of their suburban Virginia backyard (where he enjoyed even the struggle to keep the birdseed more for the birds than the squirrels).

Music was another thread throughout Steve's life: he played clarinet in the high school band, sang with the glee club in college and with choirs, choruses, and barbershop quartets in the ensuing decades, and even played a crapshooter in a community production of "Guys and Dolls" in Mexico City.

Steve passed away on July 27, 2025, a month after celebrating his 95th birthday with his children. He is survived by his children Kryston (Tim) Fischer, Halsey (Aromie Noe), Julia (Smiley Nelson), and John (Gigi Garcia-Rogers); grandchildren Sam (Chelsea Ball), Will, Tajin, Tayae, Liz, Kyle, and Lucas; and great-grandson Nolan. He was predeceased by Kent (in 2017), brother John (Barbara), and sister Carolyn (George).

A memorial service is planned for 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 15, 2025, at Little River United Church of Christ, 8410 Little River Turnpike, Annandale, VA 22003. Memorial donations may be made to the church.