Jim and Beverly Rogers receive award

Friday, Sept. 5, 2008 | 6:16 p.m.

Nevada's Higher Education System Chancellor Jim Rogers and his wife, Beverly Rogers, will receive the Emily Wanderer award for civic and community philanthropy from the Nevada ACLU tonight at the Bali Hai Golf Club on Las Vegas Boulevard South.

First dean of the William S. Boyd Law School Richard Morgan will present the award to the couple.

The Emily Wanderer award was created after then 103-year-old Wanderer asked the law school how she could help serve up and coming law students. Wanderer died in 2005 and was the oldest active member of the Nevada State Bar Association at the time.

She was one of a handful of women attorneys who practiced in Las Vegas in the 1940s and 1950s. She also served as the first attorney for the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the organization that fought discrimination on the Las Vegas Strip.

The award was presented to the Rogers for their ongoing philanthropy. Time magazine has ranked the Rogers among the top 12 philanthropists in America.

One of the newest efforts by Jim and Beverly Rogers is a fellowship established at the Boyd Law School.

Judy Cox became the first Beverly Rogers fellow this month at UNLV. The fellowship was created to provide recent Boyd Law School graduates committed to public interest careers an opportunity to work in-depth on civil liberties issues.

Cox will receive training and experience in both litigation and other forms of advocacy performed by the Nevada ACLU.

Cox is specializing in immigration issues.