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When interviewing people he touched, those who remembered J. Louis Evans evoke the words of President Woodrow Wilson.

“You are not here merely to make a living,” Wilson said. “You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a fner spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”

By all accounts, Evans remembered “this errand.”

J. Louis, who passed away last summer, was a fxture in Stephenville since his birth in 1921, and at Tarleton State University since he attended classes there, beginning in 1939.

“It’s unbelievable what he’s done to contribute to this community. Specifcally for Tarleton,” said TSU Director of Student Activities Donna Strohmeyer. “He was a staff member here, he was with Community News Service. I have always thought of J. Louis as a Tarleton treasure because of the types of things he did for the university.”

The list of Evans’ accomplishments is lengthy, to say the least.

He was a Tarleton graduate, after which he donned a military uniform in World War II. He served eight years as mayor of Stephenville and he was active in the local Lions Club for six decades, serving as president and being named a Melvin Jones Fellow by Lions Club International Foundation for his service. His daughter, Emily Roberson, said her father was, in a word, driven.

“As long as I can remember, he was a motivated little guy,” she said, laughing. “He was short, about 5-4, 5-5, and he was always motivated. He always enjoyed helping people.”

Roberson recalls her childhood, when her dad was editor of the Stephenville Empire Tribune , as well as owner of a local entertainment venue.

“He owned Tejas Bowl for about 25 years,” she said. “He built the bowling alley before I was born and he rebuilt it later on after a fre. He’d work at the newspaper all day, he was the mayor at that same time, then he would go to work at night at the bowling alley.”

Even though he was busy, each endeavor Evans undertook, he gave his best. To wit: as a newspaperman in Stephenville, Hamilton and San Marcos,