EVANS, Gary Lee
Posted: February 9th, 2022EVANS
Gary Lee Evans died on February, 7, 2022, at the age of 91. Gary was born in Medicine Hat in 1930 but spent most of his life in Lethbridge.
Gary was involved in many ventures, including co-founding independent trucking companies and Lakeside Feeders in Brooks. Gary loved the road, travelling millions of miles during his lifetime driving trucks, buses, and motorcycles. After a week of driving hundreds of miles, he would often relax by taking a day long road trip. After Gary retired from the road, he enjoyed working on a farm operating combines, and he took up bicycling, riding dozens of miles on any given day. Gary was also an aficionado all types of aircraft, most notably WWII era airplanes.
Gary is survived by his sisters, Gail Wilfley and Shirley Evans; sons, Rick (Rebecca) and Kirk (Carol) Evans; grandchildren Nicole (Evan) Sarkisian and Mackenzie, Kelsey and Alexander Evans, and great-grandsons, Liam and Logan Sarkisian.
Gary was my Dad. He had movie star good looks, which allowed him to have some good times. I’d like to ponder that for just a moment. To see a picture of my Dad in his 20s, he looked like a GQ model (if they had them in the 50s). As a kid I would notice how women noticed him.
Gary only married once. Lavonne. Although they divorced, myself and my kids wouldn’t exist if that match had not happened. I believe Gary always loved Lavonne, and at times would show concern for Mom long after their divorce. He never remarried. He was thrilled when he learned he was a great-grandfather. Bittersweetly, with his dementia, he learned it again and again, and was thrilled each time.
I actually spent more time with Dad after Mom divorced him when I was 13. He’d take me motorbike riding a few times. He also bought Kirk and I cars when we graduated high school (and Kirk college). When the border patrol wouldn’t let me into the the U.S. to go to college because of said car’s lack of a catalytic converter, Dad dropped what he was doing, drove to the border, and drove me 1200 miles to Las Vegas. He later on drove my car down for me. When
When Dad was a school bus driver, he saved a bus full of school kids from sliding off a snowy cliff, and a lesser driver probably would have slipped off. The local paper wrote it up.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” maybe it wasn’t. But like the movie, if Gary had never lived, many exceptional people wouldn’t have been born, and maybe those kids in the bus would have died.
As Dad got older, he was more generous with emotions, said “I love you” to me about 4 times this last year. I am glad we both lived long enough to say those words to each other.