Alfred R. and Eileen Evans met at a dance in Canada while he was working for the newspaper in International Falls, Minnesota. They were married on Oct. 16, 1950, in the same city.
He was a native of western Nebraska, born on Nov. 30, 1927, in Chappell to Florence and Ray Evans. He grew up in Sidney, Nebraska, where he played high school basketball and worked as a printer’s devil. He joined the U.S. Navy at the age of 16, during World War II.
She was born the first of 13 children on March 31, 1931, in International Falls, Minnesota, to Romeo and Marie Karsnia. She worked in a pharmacy soda fountain early in her life and graduated from International Falls High School, where she worked as a journalist for the student newspaper.
After they married, the couple moved across the country before settling in LeRoy, Minnesota, about three decades ago. They both began their newspaper career at The Atkinson-Annawan News in Illinois. She and her husband owned and managed several weekly newspapers in Illinois, including the Orion Times, Port Byron Globe and Wyanet Eagle, as well as the Hillsboro Sentry-Enterprise in Wisconsin, which they owned from 1980 to 1984. They later purchased the LeRoy (Minn.) Independent and the Lime Springs (Iowa) Herald. Many of their 14 living children followed in their career footsteps, including Greg Evans, who owns Evans Print + Media Group in Sparta.
Alfred Evans died on Friday, June 7, 2013, at his home in LeRoy, at the age of 85. Eileen Evans died Wednesday, July 26, 2023, in Rochester, Minnesota. She was 92.
