By CAROL CHRISTIAN
After 40 years of opening the gate for countless cowboys and dignitaries at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Emmett Evans Jr. went to his final resting place in an antique hearse drawn by two mules.
Friends said it was a fitting send-off Thursday for a man who never sought fame but was known to thousands of Houston rodeo fans as "the gateman."
Evans, who had taken part in every rodeo since catching a calf in the "calf scramble" at age 15, became visible as the gateman when the Astrodome began using giant video screens in the 1980s. The rodeo moved to Reliant Stadium in 2003.
Evans appeared live on screen at the start of each night's rodeo performance as announcer Bill Bailey called out, "Let's go down to our gateman, Emmett Evans. Emmett, open the gate."
With those words, Evans started the Grand Entry, a procession of horseback riders, horse-drawn buggies, hay wagons, firetrucks and other vehicles that opened each show during the three-week event. Due to failing health, he hadn't opened the gate the last two years.
Evans, 76, died early Monday at Tomball Regional Medical Center, his wife, Mildred Evans, said. He had hip surgery earlier last month, and suffered a stroke April 30.
Burial was at Brookside Memorial Park in northeast Houston. The 1884 caisson carried him from the gate to his grave site.
"He was always a country boy," Evans said of her husband of 56 years.
The two met at the Houston rodeo in 1954, when it was held at the former Sam Houston Coliseum downtown. They were married Feb. 19, 1955.
"It was about three days after the rodeo ended," she said. "He lived for that show. It was just part of our life."
Emmett Evans Jr. was born May 13, 1934, in Conroe, and grew up on 1½ acres in north Houston. After graduating from Jefferson Davis High School in 1952, he went to work for Mosher Steel Co., which later became part of Trinity Industries. He retired in 2000.
Also worked other fairs
The couple was involved not only in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, but the Montgomery County Fair and Harris County Fair as well, Mildred Evans said.
Bailey said he and Evans worked the Houston rodeo together for about 20 years.
'Backbone' of arena crew
Once in the 1990s, an astronaut aboard one of the space shuttles delivered the line, "Emmett, open the gate," Bailey recalled.
"We'd go places together and people would holler out, 'Emmett, open the gate,' " said Bailey, who retires May 31 as Harris County Precinct 8 constable. "He was a great guy, a great mentor to a lot of people — me included."
Evans' good nature was legendary, according to Leroy Shafer, rodeo vice president and chief operating officer, who knew Evans for 38 years.
"I'm sure he would have been a great friend of Will Rogers," Shafer said, referring to the early 20th-century American humorist who famously said he never met a man he didn't like. "He not only never met somebody he didn't like, he never met anyone who didn't like him."
Besides his ready smile, Evans was always calm, despite inevitable rodeo glitches, including fallen animals, injured competitors and teams of horses that got stuck, Shafer said.
"I don't care what the situation was, Emmett was going to be calm and cool," Shafer said. "He was the backbone of that arena crew for so many years."
Jerry Crews, who served 20 years with Evans on the rodeo's volunteer Calf Scramble Committee, said Evans gladly spent a couple hours each evening of the rodeo with children who planned to participate in the calf scramble.
"There are about 40,000 or 50,000 children he taught how to put a halter on a calf, which end to put where so the calf doesn't get away from you," said Crews, of Tomball.
Besides his wife, Evans is survived by three sons, Wilburn Holley of Magnolia, Bobby Holley of Tomball, and Walter Lee of Round Rock, and 11 grandchildren.
The family suggests memorials to the Montgomery County Calf Scramble Committee, in care of Beth Traylor, P.O. Box 869, Conroe, TX 77305.
No comments:
Post a Comment