Ron Evans- Kansan, Jayhawk, Astronaut
And one heck of a funny guy
I really wish I could have met Ron. I loved reading Jan Evans’s (Ron’s wife) contributions to the JSC Oral History Project.
I talked to Emily Carney about this over the weekend, and I think both of us would be in for loading up in Ron’s suburban for an adventure to the dump. 😂
Emily and Dave have a great episode of Space and Things that dives into a book on the life of Ron Evans. Give it a listen here!
Here’s a story about Ron that was too long to include in the Cosmosphere’s post the other day. The full Cosmosphere post is included/linked below. The Cosmosphere has the space-flown suit that Evans wore during Apollo 17 too. Check out the story below for the link.
“You never knew what a day would bring. Ron, when he would be home on a Saturday, he always loaded up his Suburban with all the little children in the neighborhood. Sometimes he’d have ten or twelve children. The only requirement was that they had to wear shoes, because they of course got stuck more than once. One time they got stuck, and he had to carry one little three-year-old girl home on his shoulders for over two miles because she didn’t have shoes on. So after that, he said, “Everybody has to wear shoes.”
“He’d take them to the local dump, and they could pick out whatever treasured thing they wanted to take home with them. They all had to bring their own sack to bring it home in. The one day that they brought home a very large seed box with eight baby kittens in it, I put my foot down. Of course, we took a few days to find homes for all those kittens. Of course, it was a good lesson for all these children. They couldn’t believe that somebody would take these living things to a dump and leave them in a box where they couldn’t get out. So he had lots of fun with all the neighborhood children, and they all have fond memories of him.”
Ron Evans- Kansan, Jayhawk, Astronaut
Ronald Evans was born on November 10th, 1933, in St. Francis, Kansas. Evans went to high school in Topeka, Kansas, and later earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kansas and a Master of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Unlike many astronauts during this period of history, Evans was a combat pilot who flew on active duty during the Vietnam War. According to his NASA biography, “Captain Evans was one of the 19 astronauts selected by NASA in April 1966,” and he learned of his selection while serving on the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga.
Once at NASA, he supported various flights and was the backup Command Module pilot on Apollo 14. Apollo 17 was Evans’s first flight to space, where he flew the Command Module “America” while Cernan and Schmitt explored the lunar surface. Evans conducted critical scientific experiments during this mission, and he completed a deep space EVA on the return journey to Earth.
In an interesting twist of fate, the crew of Apollo 17 were recovered by the USS Ticonderoga; the carrier Evans had served during the Vietnam War. Evans is pictured in his official crew photo and a candid shot taken during the Trans-Lunar Coast phase of Apollo 17.
Sadly, Evans passed away in 1990 while living in Arizona. Jan Evans participated in the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project and shared wonderful recollections of her late husband. It seems that the Evans family loved to play jokes on their neighbors, “One of them, we thought they were too slow getting these dead bushes out of their front yard, and so we spray-painted them green. Their kids got up the next day and thought they’d actually come to life, and ran and woke their mom and dad up. One of them was an immaculate housekeeper, and they were gone.”
LaunchNext- Apollo 17- Flown Ron Evans Spacesuit.
Pictures- NASA
Quotes- JSC Oral History Project