In Memoriam: Patricia Officer Evans, 1941-2019

Patricia Officer Evans, longtime educator and matriarch of Southwestern Christian College in Terrell, Texas, passed away on March 31, 2019. She was 77 years old.

“Sister Evans has been and forever will be an integral part of the Southwestern story, having served as our First Lady and Queen Mother for more than 50 years,” said Ervin D. Seamster Jr., president of Southwestern Christian College.

Evans was the wife of Jack Evans, Sr., a longtime minister who served as Southwestern’s president from 1967 to 2017. In addition to serving as first lady, Evans also taught literature and French courses at the college and coordinated musical performances on campus.

According to her former student, Aaron Sayles, Evans and her husband “spent their life helping to build Southwestern Christian College into a college where African-American young people could attend and receive a valuable Christian education. She was such an inspiration to those of us who knew her, especially those of us who knew her as students at Southwestern.”

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Spelman College Receives Federal Grant to Establish Academic Center for International Strategic Affairs

“This grant enables Spelman to prepare a cohort of students to take their rightful places in conversations that will shape, define and critique international strategic affairs and national security issues and help build a better world,” said Tinaz Pavri, principal investigator of the grant.

Two Black Scholars Appointed to Endowed Professorships

John Thabiti Willis at Grinnell College in Iowa and Squire Booker at the University of Pennsylvania have been appointed to endowed professorships.

University Press of Kentucky Consortium Welcomes Simmons College of Kentucky

Simmons College of Kentucky has joined the University Press of Kentucky consortium, bringing a new HBCU perspective to its editorial board and future publications.

Danielle Speller Recognized by the National Society of Black Physicists for Early-Career Accomplishments

Danielle Spencer currently serves as an assitant professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She was honored by the National Society of Black Physicists for her research into dark matter and her mentorship of the next generation of physicists.

Featured Jobs