Rodger William Long was born in Lansing, MI on May 15, 1943 and was adopted by Francis Lenard and Norma Vera Long.  He passed away on October 29, 2022 at the age of 79 after struggling for many years with his declining health from breast cancer and heart failure. He was preceded in death by his parents and step grandson, Parker Cowan. He is survived by his daughters Jenny Cowan and husband Chris, and Katie Pierce and husband Ryan.  He is also survived by his grandchildren Cheyenne Wicks, Wyatt Cowan, and Tristen Pierce, and his step grandsons Austin and Connor Cowan along with many other friends and relatives.

Rodger never met a stranger and was a good friend to all.  He even kept in touch with all 3 of his former wives including Cindy Marlowe, his children's mother.  He had also found a few of his birth siblings recently through a popular DNA company and enjoyed getting to know them as well.

At the age of 10, Rodger moved with his family to a small town in southern Michigan called Union City.  He was a good student and participated in a student exchange program with a school in Canada.

Rodger was always interested in airplanes and the military and at the age of 14, he joined The Civil Air Patrol and worked his way up to Cadet Commander of the Cadet Unit of his squadron.

Upon graduating from high school, Rodger joined the United States Air Force.  He wanted to be a fighter pilot, but his eyesight was too bad, so he was trained as a photo lab technician.  After tech school, he was assigned to a photo jet squad in Japan for 2 years. Some of that time was spent in Vietnam.

After separating from the Air Force in 1965, he worked for a contractor at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida doing high speed motion picture photography in relation to the Air Force weapons testing and development.  During this time, Rodger used his VA education benefits to obtain all the licenses and ratings needed to become a professional pilot.

From 1972 until 2016, Rodger made his living flying airplanes as a commercial pilot.  He was chief pilot for 18 years for an oil drilling company in Shreveport, La and chief pilot for 18 years for a large home building company in Pensacola, FL. He was also a flight instructor in his spare time.

Rodger was known to say, "this beats the Hell out having a real job".  Rodger was forced into an early retirement in 2016 due to medical issues and moved back to Shreveport in 2020 to be close to his family.  He loved his girls, the beach, good food, and traveling.

A service to celebrate his life well lived will be held on Saturday, November 12 at Aulds Funeral Home, 7849 E Kings Hwy, Shreveport, LA. Visitation will begin at 1 o'clock with the service to follow at 2:00 pm.  Come casual in bright colors.  Rodger loved color.