Roger Goss

Roger Goss, the former publisher of the Delta County Independent and an advertising sales rep for the Daily Sentinel, died in hospice care at HopeWest Grand Junction on September 11; he was 82. Military graveside services will be Friday, November 6, at 1 p.m. in the Veterans Memorial Cemetery of Western Colorado in Grand Junction. A family celebration of Roger's life will follow.

During World War II, Roger's father, Earl, was in B-24 pilot and bombardier training in Wichita, Kansas, while his mother, Ellen, was living with Earl's sister, Fay, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Soon to be shipped out to North Africa to run bombing raids in Eastern Europe, Earl wanted to see his newborn son. Roger almost missed his first plane ride when Ellen, holding baby Roger, was too scared to get on the airplane. Roger's Aunt Fay grabbed him and got on the plane; Ellen reluctantly boarded, so Earl got to see Roger before he went to Europe.

After WWII, Roger's family settled in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, where he enjoyed a quintessential childhood in the 1950s. Roger fell in love with camping as a Boy Scout in Pauls Valley where his troop went on extended camping trips every summer. He and many of these boys played pee wee football every fall and went on to make Pauls Valley High School a football powerhouse in the early 1960s. He graduated from Pauls Valley High School in 1962.

While in college, Roger's career in journalism began as proofreader for several daily newspapers in Lawton, Ada, and Norman, Oklahoma. He attended the University of Hawaii, two Oklahoma state colleges, and the University of Oklahoma.

While in his senior year of college, his mother, Ellen, died from breast cancer and Roger's studies suffered. Fearing the draft, Roger joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1966. He hoped to fly as his father did but was sent to the jungles of Vietnam. During his thirteen months in Vietnam, he wrote monthly columns about life as a Marine grunt for the Pauls Valley Democrat. One of his columns featured multiple ways to enhance his C-rations. During the first TET offensive in early 1968, he was hit by a mortar when on patrol in Hue. After his recovery, the military first made use of his journalism skills as sports editor for the base newspaper at Camp Pendleton, California.

He was transferred to Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, where he was the editor of its base newspaper, the Windward Marine. He was able to reconnect with his beloved Aunt Fay who was the resident manager of a high-rise hotel in Waikiki. He met his wife and mother of his children, Ann Godfrey, in the composing room of the Honolulu printing company that produced the Windward Marine. After his honorable discharge, he briefly served as editor of a string of neighborhood weekly newspapers for the parent company of the Waikiki Beach Press. Roger and Ann married in Honolulu, June 14, 1969.

In 1970, Roger and Ann returned to Norman, Oklahoma, where Roger finished his B.A. in Journalism, graduating in 1972. They then moved to Weatherford, Oklahoma, where they worked with long-time family friends modernizing an antique letterpress weekly newspaper into a modern offset daily newspaper, the Weatherford Daily News. Roger served as managing editor.

Wanting his master's degree in public relations, Roger and his growing family moved back to Norman. There, he orchestrated his course work to extend over the three seasons that the OU football team was banned from national television. Roger was an OU Sooner football fan to the end of his life.

An avid outdoorsman, Roger leaped at the invitation from Ann's uncle, Jerry Carson of Cedaredge, to come elk hunting on the Grand Mesa. On the first weekend of the 1976 hunting season, he shot a spike bull elk. He spent the rest of his vacation passing out resumes in Grand Junction. Hired by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Roger first worked in advertising sales and in 1980 was promoted to publisher of the Delta County Independent, which was then owned by the Sentinel. During the early 1980s, Roger and Ann also operated a typesetting business called The Right Type. After settling in Grand Junction, Roger was able to purchase his own special camping place, which he named Up the Creek Ranch, along Plateau Creek above Collbran.

Throughout early adulthood, Roger suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Until the early 1980s, PTSD wasn't even recognized or named. He became a counselor with the Disabled American Veterans "storefront" center in Grand Junction which helped many returning Vietnam veterans. This group of vets put on several Vietnam memorial events including a day-long static display of helicopters and other vehicles and veteran-created artwork. Always a good storyteller himself, Roger was able to relate to other Vietnam veterans and together they created a video of many local veterans' recollections of that war. This became part of the oral history project of the Museum of Western Colorado.

Roger and Ann divorced in 1991, and he moved Up the Creek to Collbran fulltime. In the late 1990s Roger was granted 100% service-connected disability with PTSD through the Veterans Administration as a result of his time served in Vietnam. While in Collbran, he met Diana Coe, a horse trainer. He eventually sold his Up the Creek property and moved in with Diana. He helped her run her La Loba Ranch where she trained and cared for dressage show horses. They would winter in Indio, California, where Diana would show her horses and offer her horse training services. Roger thoroughly enjoyed helping care for the horses and found them to be very therapeutic. About 2010, Diana sold her La Loba Ranch in Collbran and moved to be closer to her children.

Roger moved back to Grand Junction and in 2014 underwent open heart surgery to replace his aortic valve. Over the next 10 plus years, Roger lived in several rental residences, and various assisted living facilities, receiving increasing amounts of help from his children. After a fall in 2024, he became bedridden and lived at Eagle Ridge Post-Acute Nursing Home until September 2026.

Survivors include son Daniel Lee Goss and his wife Susie of Grand Rapids, Michigan; daughter Malia Fay Green and her husband Ryan of Grand Junction; and son Andrew Godfrey Goss of Telluride; two granddaughters: Eva Victoria Green Crum and her husband Merrit and Moriah Dawn Green of Grand Junction; sisters: Jan Hunt and her husband Byrl of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Anna Parker and her husband Craig of Moore, Oklahoma; Nancy Moydell and her husband Paul of Simpsonville, South Carolina; and several nieces and nephews.

Predeceased family members include his parents, Walter Earl Goss and Ellen Bernice Roland, and his beloved Aunt Fay Carothers.