LANE: John E. Evans, a civic force that will be missed

Everybody in Volusia County’s public life over the past three decades knew John E. Evans.

He was often the happy-to-help master of ceremonies at the award dinner or featured speaker at the fundraising event.

He was director of corporate communications for Halifax Community Health System. He was a columnist, op-ed writer and letter to the editor contributor on The News-Journal Editorial page.

He was chief executive officer of the Florida Tourism Association. He was chairman of the Halifax Area Advertising Authority. He chaired both the Orlando/Orange County Visitors and Convention Bureau and Destination Daytona. He was president of Port Orange’s Family Days board of directors.

The man was everywhere.

If I listed the charities, nonprofits, business groups and civic organizations he belonged to and volunteered for, this column would look like the small-print tables in the sports section. It was a lot.

Which is why it’s so hard to believe that he died last week. I still reflexively expect to see him appear at the next civic event.

If you lived in Central Florida in the 1980s and watched any local TV, you will remember his on-air editorials on WESH-TV, “Evans Essays.” These were short, upbeat pieces which he delivered from behind a desk in a chipper, nasal staccato, often employing the first person plural of an old-time newspaper editorial: “We applaud the recent efforts of area volunteers …”

Nowadays, people you see on television news tend to be bland, young and polished with interchangeable good looks and delivery. Evans always looked and sounded distinctive, and he was always enthusiastically himself.

Locally produced editorials were already a rarity on American television when Evans was doing them as WESH station manager. They were vestiges of a time when local television sounded friendlier, less homogenized.

He always used his middle initial. People called him “John-E” as though that were his first name.

Although he claimed to be retired, reporters and editors often got John-E’s emails. The last one I received enthusiastically urged me to get air potato-leaf beetles from the University of Florida to control the invasive vines in my yard. This was a man whose interests ranged beyond just civic affairs.

Another email was praise for News-Journal editor Cal Massey on his retirement in 2016. John-E wrote a column on Monday mornings for The News-Journal from 1990-1996. Massey hadn’t edited John-E’s work for a decade, but he evidently felt it was never too late to say thank you. That’s how he was. A gracious guy.

His last letter to the editor ran last March and praised the work of Charlie McGivern, interim manager of the Space Coast Chapter of the American Red Cross’ Volusia-Flagler operations. John-E’s involvement with the Red Cross stretched for a half century.

“Charlie deserves an 'attaboy’ from all of us,” he wrote.

It would be wrong for a person who always felt that good work needed better recognition to pass on without a little more recognition of his own in print. He did a lot of good here, and more selfishly, I’m going to miss running into him.