2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the Potter College of Arts and Letters (PCAL) and, in honor of this momentous occasion, we are privileged to hear from alumnus, Roseann Rogers (’90), who graduated from WKU with a degree in Broadcasting.
During her time at WKU, Rogers was a member of the WKU Cheerleading Team as well as a founding member of the Dance team. In addition to being active in the Alpha Delta Pi sorority, she worked for the WKU Radio Show. While Rogers kept herself busy both in and out of the classroom, she will never forget the lasting impact that her Broadcasting professors and classes had on her.
She particularly credits former Associate Professor of Broadcasting Jo Anne Ryan for guiding her to success. Rogers originally attended Winthrop University pursuing a degree in Mass Communication but transferred to WKU at the start of her junior year. At the suggestion of Professor Ryan, Rogers pursued the Broadcasting major and fell in love with the program.
“Jo Anne was very instrumental in the career that I have,” says Rogers. “She told me, ‘You’re a storyteller. I can tell with all the classes you took. I really think here at Western you’d be a very strong Broadcasting major, and then you could minor in Speech’. Because of her guidance, it helped me figure out what was going to be my next step coming in as a junior.”
Some of her favorite classes that she took during her time at WKU were Radio Performance and Television Performance. In these classes, Rogers was able to apply everything she learned in her previous classes to further hone her radio and television interviewing skills, as well as her overall presentation.
After graduation, she landed her first job at WHAS-TV in Louisville as a Producer and was quickly promoted to the position of Reporter for the station’s live entertainment show, “Louisville Tonight Live”. Then, she took a job as an Entertainment Reporter for KPRC-TV in Houston, TX. In this position, Rogers was able to use her strong storytelling abilities to cover celebrity interviews, movie previews, and fashion/lifestyle trends on her segment, “The Buzz”.
“I had a fun job,” says Rogers. “I mean, I went all over the world. I’ve been to London, Los Angeles, Paris, and Cairo, Egypt covering movies. I had a really great job for a number of years.”
After being an Entertainment Reporter for KPRC-TV for five years, she was promoted to the position of Marketing Director & Station Spokesperson. Along with KPRC-TV, she made impacts on various industries in Houston through her work with businesses and organizations like the Houston Chronicle, K9s4COPS, and Stewart Title. However, in 2020, she moved to Nashville, TN where she has continued her illustrious career through jobs with iHeartMedia Nashville, Stroll Magazine, and more.
Rogers still considers WKU to be a big part of her life. In addition to the experiences and memories from her time as a student, she and her family also created the Rufus B. Rogers Sports Broadcasting Scholarship with WKU Philanthropy and Alumni Engagement to give back to WKU students and honor her father who was the umpire for WKU Baseball games. This scholarship is awarded to full-time students majoring in Broadcasting, with first preference given to students in sports-related journalism.
“[The scholarship] has been awarded to three recipients so far, and then this year will be our fourth year,” says Rogers. “We’re very excited about it, to meet the students. I think it’s a way for us to give back because Western gave me a platform for broadcasting, and, because of that, I was able to go to a top ten market at a very young age.”
When asked to give advice to current students, Rogers encouraged students to take all the opportunities they possibly can, especially ones outside of the university to enhance their skills, become more confident in their abilities, and prepare themselves for the future of their career.
“Take every class and internship seriously,” says Rogers. “Don’t pass up any opportunity to develop your skills even more. Go into every performance class like you’re anchoring or reporting for a big network.”