Evans, C. E. (Cecil Eugene)

Dates

• Existence: 1871 January 21 - 1958 August 23
• Existence: 1871-01-21 - 1958-08-23

Biography

Cecil E. Evans was born in Bowden, Georgia on January 21, 1871. He earned his B.A. degree from Oxford College in Alabama in 1888. He taught in Alabama, and continued to teach after moving to Texas in 1894 before earning a master’s degree from the University of Texas in 1906. Evans married Allie Maxwell on May 18, 1899 and had one daughter together.

He was the second president of Texas State University (then Southwest Texas State Normal School), an educational career that lasted from 1911 until August 31, 1942. Under Evans’ leadership the institution changed from a normal school to a “junior college” to a “normal college” and finally to Teachers College in 1923. He awarded the first bachelor’s (1919) and master’s (1937) degrees as enrollment grew from 619 to 1,219. The school grew by 13 buildings, the first eight of which were dormitories; a 40-acre farm and a riverside park. He hired Alfred H. Nolle, the first faculty member with a doctorate, and led the college through World War I, the Great Depression and into World War II.

He thought of Texas State as a “poor-man’s school” and fought to open higher education to more people, a philosophy later adopted by his former errand boy, Lyndon Johnson, who Evans mentored until his graduation in 1930. His education advocacy started before his arrival at Texas State. Evans served as general agent for the Conference on Education in Texas from 1908-1911, helping secure three school amendments for the Texas Constitution and legislation designed to improve teachers training. He also served on the Texas Textbook Board. In his retirement, he wrote a book called "The Story of Texas Schools" (1955) about the development of the educational system in Texas.

Evans died on August 23, 1958 and is buried in San Marcos, Texas.

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