For those interested, here is an obituary
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dick Evans, an award winning writer for both The Miami Herald and Daytona Beach News-Journal, died Sunday, July 4th, at the age of 78.
He was the youngest of three Evans brothers to write for The Miami Herald from 1937 to Dick Evans decided to retire a second time in 2009 after receiving checks from The Miami Herald for 60 years.
At time of death, Evans was the leading award winner in the Bowling Magazine Writing Contest for stories that appeared in both The Herald and News-Journal He also was the top winner in the Professional Bowlers’ Association’s writing contest until it was discontinued in 2001.
Evans also was named the top tennis writer in Florida in 2002 and was awarded the trophy at the 2002 USA Tennis Florida Convention in Daytona Beach.
Evans began his journalism career by delivering the Miami News between 1943-45 and giving football scores on Saturdays at the Miami Herald sports department in 1945-46-47.
At age 14 he was hired to take greyhound results and write headlines for short stories in The Miami Herald sports department six nights a week.
At age 17, he officially joined The Miami Herald staff when he was hired as a copy-boy.
At age 20, he was added to the Miami Herald's sports department staff.
Evans wrote about all high school sports, college football, boxing, bowling, golf, tennis, water skiing, wrestling, horse/dog/harness races, jai-alai and also spent 14 months serving as interim religious editor for The Herald.
He once organized and ran a Dade County High school baseball tournament that featured North Miami High’s Steve Carlton (a Hall of Famer) and Fred Norman, a future star with the Chicago Cubs, in a taut pitchers duel at Miami Stadium before 3,000. Evans also organized a practice with the Baltimore Orioles for all of Dade’s high school baseball prospects during the O’s spring training season in Miami.
His most successful promotion came when he teamed with Joe Tanenbaum at Gulfstream Race Track and drew 56,000 entries as South Floridians attempted to pick the best horse ever to run at Gulfstream.
But his forte was bowling, a sport that he started covering for The Herald in 1957.
Evans was the first daily newspaper reporter inducted into the Professional Bowlers Association's Hall of Fame in 1986 and also the American Bowling Congress' Hall of Fame in 1992.
In addition, he was the first daily newspaper writer presented the Billiards’ and Bowling Industry’s service award in 1986 and the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America’s Chief Wapensky award in 2007.
Evans, despite serving as a judge for 10 years when he was not eligible to enter stories, won a record 60 plus Bowling Magazine writing awards.
He also was named the official bowling writer for the Knight-Ridder News Wire in the early 1980s and was sent to St. Louis to receive the bowling industry’s media award on behalf of the Knight-Ridder chain during the Salute Dinner in 1992. His weekly bowling stories were sent out over the Knight-Ridder news wire and went to 144 daily newspapers with a daily circulation of over 10 million papers.
Evans retired from The Miami Herald Dec. 31, 1989. However, the native Miamian continued to cover the bowling beat for The Herald's until he decided to end his Miami Herald career 20 years later.
Two of his brothers, the late Luther and Lee Evans, also wrote sports stories for The Miami Herald. Thus stories under the byline of an Evans brother appeared in The Miami Herald from 1937 until 2009 except for two years during World War II (1943-44).
After retiring and moving to Daytona Beach in 1989, Evans also was hired by the Professional Bowlers Association in 1990 as its media director for the PBA Senior tour. He worked 77 tournaments over the next seven years before stepping down following a heart attack.
In 1999, The News-Journal also asked Evans to write local bowling stories — one of which won the feature story division in The Bowling Magazine's national writing contest.
He continued to write tennis/bowling for the Daytona Beach News-Journal until his death. His bowling stories have appeared in every bowling magazine published plus many local bowling publications.
And his stories have appeared on Bowlingdigital.com for more than a decade and result in Email comments from readers in Europe, Israel, Canada and Asia.
Dick Evans is survived by his wife of Joan Gano Evans, son Richard V. Evans, an attorney in Louisville, Ky., and three grandchildren — Peyton, Carter and Walker.
