This story has been updated.
Alamo Trust Inc. President and CEO Kate Rogers has stepped down after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for her resignation this week, citing “troubling” past writings he says are “incompatible with the telling of the history of the battle of the Alamo.”
“”It was with mixed emotions that I resigned my post as President and CEO at the Alamo Trust yesterday,” Rogers said in a statement Friday. “It became evident through recent events that it was time for me to move on.”
An email to Rogers on Friday returned an automatic reply: “Kate Rogers is no longer at Alamo Trust, Inc.”
Former Secretary of State Hope Andrade was voted unanimously by Alamo Trust’s board of directors to be the next president and CEO of the 200-staffer organization. Andrade has served on the Alamo Trust and Remember the Alamo Foundation boards since 2015, the organization said in a statement, during the development of the Alamo Plan, the design phase and recent construction.
The Alamo Trust had been under new scrutiny after a since-deleted social media post honoring “Indigenous Peoples and their communities” and “their history at the Alamo” went viral earlier this month.
In his call for her resignation, Patrick pointed to writings from Rogers’ dissertation for her doctoral work, which she finished in 2023, but he said had only recently been “discovered.”
Rogers wrote at the time that she generally disagreed with the state’s efforts to control what’s taught in the classroom — efforts that have only ramped up since President Donald Trump returned to office at the beginning of this year.
She also noted the challenge of balancing her own personal political views those of the state’s conservative-dominated legislature, where Patrick has played a major role in steering state money toward the Alamo’s redevelopment.
“Personally, I would love to see the Alamo become a beacon of historical reconciliation, and place that brings people together instead of tearing them apart,” she wrote. But politically, “that may not be possible.”
Locally, she’s been lauded for her work balancing the desires of conservative state leaders holding the purse strings with those of a blue city that also feels much ownership over how the Alamo’s history is presented.
Just a year ago Rogers and state leaders were all together in San Antonio, celebrating the groundbreaking of the new Alamo Visitor Center and Museum.
“God brought together this puzzle of people from different walks of life, of different political parties, and we came together at the right time,” Patrick said at that event.
The Alamo Trust is overseen by its board of directors, which just promoted Rogers from executive director to president and CEO in August. But as Rogers noted in her dissertation, the Alamo is under control of the Texas General Land Office, which keeps them on a short leash.
“The staff there is heavily involved nearly every decision I make,” Rogers wrote. “Especially those that could have political implications for the [Land] Commissioner and his or her staff members, who are always on high alert.”
To her point, earlier this month the Trust’s Indigenous Peoples day post on X caught the attention of the conservative media outlet Texas Scorecard, which flagged it for Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham.
Buckingham immediately responded that “woke has no place” at the Alamo, and that “we will be holding those responsible accountable.”
That was Oct. 14.
By Oct. 23, Patrick said in a letter to the Alamo Trust’s board of directors that he’d notified Rogers about his concerns. “I suggested she offer her resignation before the board considers the matter,” he said.
Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones called Rogers’ departure “a huge loss for our state” in a statement.
“The courage to tell the varied experiences of those at the Alamo — not pandering to certain people — should drive how we help the next generation learn about this historic site,” Jones said.
Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai called Patrick’s move “gross political interference.”
“The next thing you know, they will be denying Japanese internment,” said the Democrat, whose Japanese American family was subject to internment during World War II. “We need to get politics out of our teaching of history. Period.”
In her own Friday statement, Rogers expressed hope for the future of the Alamo project.
“I am incredibly proud of the team we built and the work we did together over the past four and a half years,” Rogers said. “I remain grateful to the board for this incredible opportunity that enabled me to grow both personally and professionally and to our state’s leadership and the Legislature for their generous support.
“I will be watching and cheering from afar as the Alamo Plan finally comes to fruition with the opening of the Texas Cavaliers Education Center next year and the Alamo Visitor Center and Museum in 2027, and I look forward to what the future may hold for me and my family.”
Amber Esparza contributed to this report.
