Our Story

The Values Behind the Name

For anyone who grew up in Ashland County in the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, two names need no introduction: Dale Evans and Roy Rogers.

Roy Rogers — “The King of the Cowboys” — and Dale Evans were among the most recognized and beloved entertainers in postwar America. Their television show ran on NBC through most of the 1950s. In a time before cable, before the internet, before most families had two televisions, they were a Saturday-morning presence in living rooms across the country — including living rooms in Ashland County.

But what Dale Evans and Roy Rogers became known for was larger than entertainment.

In 1950, their daughter Robin Elizabeth Rogers was born with Down syndrome. At the time, the standard medical advice given to families in this situation was institutionalization — to place the child out of sight, and to not speak of it. Dale Evans and Roy Rogers refused. They brought Robin home. They loved her. When Robin died just before her second birthday, Dale Evans wrote about it.

In 1953, Dale Evans published Angel Unaware — a short book written from Robin’s perspective, imagining the child reporting back to God about the impact of her brief life on Earth. The book was not expected to be widely read. It became a national bestseller. Proceeds went to what is now known as The Arc of the United States, then the National Association for Retarded Children.

Angel Unaware is credited with significantly shifting American public attitudes toward children with intellectual and developmental disabilities — away from institutionalization, toward family care, toward community, toward the idea that these children belong among us.

During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, communities across America named schools and programs for children with developmental disabilities in honor of Dale Evans and Roy Rogers. The “Dale-Roy” naming convention — combining their first names — appeared in programs from Ohio to California. These communities were attaching a name they recognized to a value they believed in: that every person belongs in a community, and that looking after your neighbor is not charity — it is simply what you do.

The values those names represented — dignity, belonging, family, community care, the idea that no one should be hidden away — are exactly what Dale-Roy School has practiced for more than 50 years.