Contest | Place | Year |
---|---|---|
National Flat Pick Guitar Championship | First | 1990 |
Just to avoid any confusion up front, Randy Rogers who won the Flat Pick Contest in 1990 is not the same guy who heads the increasingly popular “The Randy Rogers Band”, however; the latter’s musical success is certainly enviable!
Randy Rogers who plays flat pick guitar was raised in north-central Kansas. His initial inspiration for music came from his parents who both sang and played guitar. Through junior high and high school, Randy and his sister Debra played and sang at numerous community events and local contests. Randy attended Kansas State University where he graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
After a brief stint in the aerospace business working as an engineer on the Delta Space Vehicle with McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company in Huntington Beach, California (which almost qualifies as rocket science), he and James Carroll, his future brother-in-law toured the Midwest full-time for a year as a duo playing and singing folk, country and bluegrass music. Both played flat-pick and finger-style guitar and Randy also played the five-string banjo in their act.
From there, Randy worked as an engineer and District Supervisor for ARCO in Wichita Falls and Houston, Texas (where he was living in 1990). He subsequently moved to Choctaw, Oklahoma where he and his wife Cindy live today and he currently works as a District Supervisor for Sunoco Logistics.
Randy and Cindy have two sons, Matthew and Nathan who are both attending the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Both enjoy guitar music (particularly Tommy Emmanuel) and Nathan has entered the Flat Pick Contest the past few years.
With their sons grown and away at college, Randy and Cindy now perform nearly every weekend in the Oklahoma City area, singing and playing a blend of folk, country, bluegrass and some of Randy’s original songs. He also plays guitar and occasional bass with “The State School Band” that performs several times a year.
Randy can be heard in the Mel Bay book, “Winfield Winners” which was published in 1997.