I grew up in Pittsburgh and was in a Catholic Grade School when he died. We held a special memorial mass for him because of the impact he had on both our city and kids generally. I can’t think of anyone else that would be done for, not even Dan Rooney or Mario Lemieux. Mister Rodgers was one of a kind.
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/05/23/mr...
On the one hand, I think Fred Rogers was a wonderful human being. What I say next is not meant to detract from that in any way at all.
I don't think Fred Rogers was special.
Anyone can do what he did; the problem is that most people simply don't want to, I think. We've been taught that that kind of behavior is tiring, that we deserve "me" time and thoughts, that the public space is also "our" space.
When I think about Fred Rogers, my mental image is that service is first, then celebrity came from that consistent service. Any modern day celebrity could slowly take on a Fred Rogers-like image if they chose to consistently and wholly devote themselves to kindness and service.
In the beginning, it may seem insincere, but then as it continued consistently, I think that sincerity would be born from that consistency. Especially if they ceased other commercial activities or used those activities solely to plainly drive their service.
Edit: I've been reading the Esquire article about him (https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27134/can-you-say-...) and interestingly enough, there's a quote about this: "You would think it would be easy by now, being Mister Rogers; you would think that one morning he would wake up and think, Okay, all I have to do is be nice for my allotted half hour today, and then I'll just take the rest of the day off . . . But no, Mister Rogers is a stubborn man"
He's special because he stepped up and did it.
Everybody has skeletons in their closet. Lots of people have tried to dig up dirt on Mr. Rogers' saintly image, but failed.
Meanwhile, Melanie Martinez, the host on PBS' "The Good Night Show" for children got canned when some "offensive" humor video she had made prior to her position surfaced. Her on-air personality was perfectly congenial.
Mr. Rogers only worked because he was less human than the rest of us. He never slipped up. We never caught him picking up hookers by the docks. We could never find a reason to take him down.
The point I really want to make is that for all that people talk about how fantastic he was and how he should have been canonized etc. -- he was just a guy who decided to do that. There's nothing stopping anyone else from doing that, from being nice and going the extra mile for other people.
There isn't some intrinsic quality that prevents anyone from being like that other than the decision to, well, do that.
I don’t think just anyone could do it.
With that said, the freshman orientation experience involved pulling in volunteers across the school to help move people in. After going through it as a freshman, I got a chance to volunteer for the next two years of students. I remember one particular family had made an entire trip out of it by doing a multi-state bike-and-drive to get to Pittsburgh.
While I get this isn't particularly unique to CMU, it really helped to know that there was a group of people who were excited to see me there. And it felt good to be the person doing the welcoming to the university.
He would help move freshman into CMU and Pitt dorms every year, because he lived only a few miles away and he wanted to welcome them to his actual neighborhood.
How cool would it have been to look up from figuring out where to put your bag of clothes to see Fred Rogers holding a box of your books...