He attended Gray Avenue Intermediate School in the Yuba City Unified School District, graduating from 8th grade with high honors and as a California Junior Scholarship member on June 10, 1981. He attended Yuba City High School from 1981-1985, where he was a representative of Boys State and the Presidential Classroom of Young Americans of Washington, D.C., and a member of the Juvenile Justice Commission, the Key Club and the California Scholastic Federation. He was a member of the golf team for three years and played on the junior varsity football team. He graduated in 1985.

From 1985-1986 Rodger attended UC Berkeley studying petroleum engineering.

Rodger died about 9:30 P.M. August 4, 1986 when an automobile in which he was a passenger crashed at Eager Road and Tierra Buena Road near Yuba City, California. Memorial services were held at 11:00 A.M. at the St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Yuba City, with as many as 600 people attending. Inurnment was in Sutter Cemetery, Sutter, Sutter County, California, in a plot originally intended for his grandmother, Anna Kunde Blenn. His grave bears a marker with the following inscription:

Photo from collection of Brian Kunde.