Beverly Rogers is an American philanthropist. In 2014, she and her husband, Jim Rogers, founded the Rogers Foundation, a foundation trust specializing in education and the arts. In 2019, Rogers developed the Lucy, a literary and arts space, and in 2023, she debuted the Beverly Theater, a local film, performance, and arts venue, both of which are in the

downtown Las Vegas Downtown Las Vegas (commonly abbreviated as DTLV) is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is the original townsite, and the Downtown gaming Las Vegas, Downtown Gaming Area was the primary gambl ...

area.

Early life

In 1962, Rogers moved from

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

with her family, where her stepfather became a mechanic for a bowling alley, while her mother managed the office for an orthodontist. She then went to school at the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the ...

and sold advertisements for television and radio in the 1980s, after which she worked at KSNV-TV. In 1997, Rogers married her husband, Jim Rogers, after which she began getting involved in nonprofit work and philanthropy. Together, they worked on several projects in

such as the Lone Pine Film Festival and the Black Mountain Institute at the

Career

Rogers Foundation

In 2013, Rogers and her husband, Jim Rogers, established a foundation trust called the Rogers Foundation with the "broad mission to address education". After her husband's death from cancer in June of 2014, Rogers began focusing her philanthropic efforts on education and the arts. Since its establishment, the Rogers Foundation has funded collegiate scholarships, created programs like Educate Nevada Now and CORE Academy, and facilitated the Heart of Education awards for teachers. For a ''

Las Vegas Review-Journal The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' is a daily subscription newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1909. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada and one of two daily newspapers in the Las Vegas area. The ''Review-Journal' ...

'' piece in 2021, the foundation reported approximately $89 million in disbursements toward projects relevant to its goals.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Black Mountain Institute

In 2013, Rogers and her husband donated $10 million dollars to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas' Black Mountain Institute for writers. As a result, it was renamed the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute. Their funds also created the Beverly Rogers Literature and Law Building, revitalized the institute's City of Asylum program, and launched the $50,000 Black Mountain Institute Prize for Fiction. In 2019, Rogers donated $5 million to the university's Special Collections to fund a curator of rare books and support the department's operations. In 2024, she donated rare books from her personal library to the collection, including rare editions of

Jane Austen Jane Austen ( ; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for #List of works, her six novels, which implicitly interpret, critique, and comment on the English landed gentry at the end of the 18th century ...

and

George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She wrot ...

, as well as a book that

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

had owned.

The Lucy

In 2014, Rogers opened the Lucy on Sixth Street and Bonneville Avenue, a literary and arts space in

which hosts and partners with local organizations like The Writer's Block, which Rogers partially owns, and the Black Mountain Institute. The Lucy features an outdoor venue, as well as twelve loft residences for artists and writers.

Beverly Theater

In 2021, the Rogers Foundation unveiled plans to build a 14,000 square foot theater for film and performance in

on Sixth Street. Originally slated for a 2022 debut, the $30-million-dollar Beverly Theater opened in 2023 with 146 seats. It is considered the only art house in

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

. With creative director Kip Kelly on board, the theater's programming was broadly split into three categories: Lit (literature), Live (live entertainment), and Film (with a specific attention to indie). On its segue, jazz shows and author readings are typically scheduled. Since its inception, it had fostered frequent partnerships with Rogers' other ventures like The Writer's Block and the Black Mountain Institute, featuring writers such as

Teju Cole Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella, '' Every Day Is for the Thief'' (2007); a novel, '' Open City'' (2011); an essay collection, ''Known and Strange Things' ...

and Pemi Aguda. In 2024, the Beverly Theater launched a film distribution component of its operations, Ink Films, in order to promote independent films in the city and beyond.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rogers, Beverly American philanthropists American nonprofit businesspeople American educational reformers Year of birth missing (living people) Living people