Two Authors Honored at Evans Awards

Utah State University President Stan Albrecht welcomed guests who gathered to honor the recipients of the Evans Awards — the Evans Biography Award and the Evans Handcart Award. While presented in 2007, the awards acknowledge works published in 2006.


“I am pleased and delighted to welcome everyone today,” Albrecht said. “I’ve had a nine-year association with the Evans Awards. First, for two years as dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, then during my four years as provost and now for the past three years as president. I am grateful for the partnership between the Evans family and the award and the university. The awards have gone to outstanding writers writing about a variety of topics. I believe David and Beatrice Evans would be pleased.”

 

Established to honor David and Beatrice Evans, the Evans awards celebrate and reward the writing of biography.

 

Winner of the $10,000 Evans Biography Award was Sandra Ailey Petree, editor for Recollections of Past Days: The Autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer, published by Utah State University Press.

 

“What I wanted to do first was to get to know my subject, Patience,” Petree said. “I needed to be transported to a different time. This was a time-traveling historical study and it was a thrill to enter someone else’s time. Patience became a living, breathing companion.”

 

Winner of the $1,000 Evans Handcart Award was Kenneth W. Merrell, author of Scottish Shepherd: The Life and Times of John Murray Murdoch, Utah Pioneer. The work is published by University of Utah Press.

 

“My approach to this book was simple,” Merrell told the crowd. “I wanted to make this more than a family history. I wanted to make the subject, the person, universal. I saw him as an ‘Everyman.’ I wanted to focus on his resilience and optimism and I wanted to demonstrate how he coped with change and loss.”

 

The subject of the book is Merrell’s great-great grandfather.

 

Wayne Evans represented the Evans family at the ceremony.

 

“I’d like to recognize the people who are here and the people who are not here who make this possible,” Evans said. “To the award recipients — people who do this amaze me. You are to be congratulated.”

 

Evans told those gathered that his mother studied writing and was the family historian. She completed histories on both sides of her family — for the Bennions and the Cannons. His father was a copy writer for the Deseret News, then went on to a successful career in advertising and public relations.

 

“It was a combination of their interests that led to the establishment of this program,” he said.

 

Gary Kiger, dean of USU’s College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, closed the award presentation, congratulating the winners and thanking the Evans family.

 

“USU is pleased to host the awards,” Kiger said. “These awards are a major force in recognizing the works of outstanding authors. We convey our appreciation to the Evans family and congratulate the writers.”

 

 

 

Contact: Elaine Thatcher (435) 797-0299, elaine.thatcher@usu.edu
Writer: Patrick Williams (435) 797-1354, patrick.williams@usu.edu