FAYETTE - Construction will begin this month on a new Main Street business: Steve and Pam Rogers of Sumner intend to open S.K. Rogers Funeral Chapel later this fall.

The couple has ambitious plans.

Steve Rogers will renew his mortuary license this month. In August, with help from a business development grant, the couple will open their first funeral home in Sumner.

Rogers is plant manager at Rockwell Automation in Sumner, and he admits some people are curious about his career change.

He says the couple's first child in 1978 was a victim of sudden infant death syndrome. That opened his eyes to the importance of a funeral director.

Rogers worked at John Deere Tractor Works in Waterloo for 18 years but studied for his mortician's license. In 1994, he finished an internship at Schultz Funeral Home.

Rogers worked at the funeral home in DeWitt while he and his wife looked for a funeral home to buy. Unsuccessful, Rogers placed his mortician license on inactive status and went to work for Rockwell in 1995.

He never gave up on the idea, however.

Next month, the Rogers' daughter, Ginny, will marry Andrew Boeckman. The young couple are enrolled in mortuary school and will be licensed morticians by 2011. Ginny intends to do her internship with her father.

Other members of the family also will be involved. Steve and Pam Rogers will have help from daughters and sons-in-law, Rick and Amanda Westendorf and Scott and Nancy Meyer. The couple's mothers, Joyce Mader and Bev Lande, also will pitch in when needed.

"We want to provide the right amount of service and with our extended family, we should be able to do that," Rogers said.

Upper Iowa University will present a business development grant to the Rogerses at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday in Fayette. The couple will use the grant to open the funeral chapel.

The funeral chapel will be a full-service operation and a family-oriented business.

Pam Rogers feels the time is right for the expansion.

"We feel very comfortable coming to Fayette," she said. "We've had ties here over the years, and everything has just fallen into place."