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Thanks to the research of our fellow classmate, Ralph Norman, we have the following obituary for Mary Alice Evans (Davis) that appeared in The Austin American- Statesman on
May 25th, 2004.
Mary Alice Davis, who long cherished social justice and the power of words, died Sunday night at the age of 59 from ovarian cancer, first diagnosed in August, 2002.
A fifth generation Texan, she was born May 27, 1944 in the U.S. Naval Hospital at San Diego. Her
late parents, William Malcolm Evans and Edna Mae Evans, Central Texas schoolteachers, lived in California during his World War II military service. Mary Alice later grew up in Waco.
From her parents, she learned to value humor, intelligence, thrift, progressive ideas, education for all and the nation's great open spaces. The family camped and traveled widely before Mary Alice's graduation from Richardson High School in 1962. In high school she excelled in debate, theatre and journalism, an interest that had begun while writing for a fifth grade classroom weekly.
She received a journalism degree in 1965 from the University of Texas where her work on The Daily Texan began a 38 year career as a professional writer and editor.
In the 1960's and 1970's, she worked for The Corpus Christi Caller Times. During that time, she married fellow-journalist James Leslie (Jim) Davis. They married on the last day of 1968. Their daughter, Rachel Kirsten Davis, was born on March 8, 1973 in Corpus Christi. The family moved to Austin in 1976, and Rachel is now employed as a legal assistant in Austin.
Jim and Mary Alice lived a year in Mexico and traveled extensively in Canada, Spain, Great Britain, Turkey, Greece and New Zeland.
Mary Alice worked many years as a writer and editor for the Texas Legislature and spent the last five years of her journalism career as an editorial writer and opinion page columnist at the Austin American-Statesman.
Survivors include her husband, their daughter, several cousins, aunts and uncles.
A memorial service will be held at the First Unitarian-Universalist Church of Austin.
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John Buchanan
Unfortunately, I didn't know Mary Alice at all. According to our yearbook, she joined RHS during her junior year and was quite active as a member of the Playhouse RHS and the Talon staff. I am hopeful that several of her classmates will share their remembrances of Mary Alice so her memory will live on as a part of our class.
Nancy Smith (Barnes)
Mary Alice and I were editors on the Talon staff. Our journalism class gave lots of time to visit and talk about the paper. This class led me to graduation with a BA in Journalism at UH. I was the Sports Editor of The Cougar. I can't even imagine how I got that job! It was great fun interviewing basketball coach Guy Lewis and many star athletes!
Mary Alice was a really nice gal and I am sad that she is no longer with us. I would have loved to visit with her about some of our pranks in Mrs. Underwood's Journalism class.
Gary (Aka Weston) DeWalt
I did not get to really know Mary Alice until the early days of her journalism career and, when I did, I found her to be incredibly bright and motivated to get to the heart of whatever story she happened to be writing. During the time I knew her she was dating "Vegas," a Las Vegas man-about-town, who brought out Mary Alice's daring and funny side, which - like her devoted seriousness - was a pleasure to witness.