Roger Axtell, former Regent, remembered as ‘gentleman’s gentleman’


A Janesville man who sold Parker Pens around the world, wrote books about international etiquette and worked for both Democratic and Republican governors is gone. Roger Axtell, 80, died unexpectedly Sunday in Arizona. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson appointed Axtell to the UW Board of Regents in 1999, a post Axtell held until 2006. We also remember, vaguely, that it was Axtell who once gave one of the better “Regents greetings” we’ve heard at a UW-Green Bay winter commencement, when he briefly tutored the graduates and the larger audience about global business and the need to be culturally literate. Read more here.