Boy Scouts in the Quad Cities are remembering a long-time volunteer of the program.

Ben Rogers died yesterday from the coronavirus. He volunteered with the Boy Scouts for more than 40 years and worked with thousands of kids.

“He made a commitment and he stuck to that commitment. It came first,” John Dewitt, Scoutmaster of Troop 109 said. “He never met a stranger. He talked to everybody. If it had anything to do with scouting he was in, he was ready to do it. Gung ho at it.”

“Ben was all about service above self,” Jeff Doty, Illowa Council Scout Executive said. “The kind of person that if he saw a need, he just stepped in and took care of it and said what can I do to help?”

“There was no stranger,” Gary Pearsall, Scoutmaster of Troop 119 said. “If there was a stranger in camp, by the time they left they wouldn’t be a stranger to him.”

We asked the scout leaders what they would say to him if they could talk to him today.

“Well done my friend,” Doty said. “He left us way too soon, but what an example, and what a legacy that he left us.”

“Ben was always so easy going and stuff, and I worked with him a lot in the kitchen,” Dewitt said. Who knows where that conversation would go but right now I think it would just be a thank you.”

“I would tell him that remembering him,” Pearsall said. “That he is probably the most loved and most caring person that you could want.”