Roy Gene Evans (in navy blazer and light blue shirt) with family and friends
The Lake Highlands Education Foundation and the Lake Highlands Alumni Association teamed up to honor six beloved Wildcats with awards Sunday night. Almost 250 alumni, educators and community members were in attendance at Royal Oaks Country Club for the event.
“Roy Gene Evans is honored tonight as our first Distinguished Alumnus, which is altogether appropriate, as he was a part of the first graduating class of Lake Highlands High School in 1964,” said Marc Rylander, 1992 LHHS graduate and emcee of the program. “Roy Gene epitomizes everything that was special and unique about our community from the earliest years of our beloved school. That first graduating class formed and forged the foundation for Lake Highlands and created so many of the traditions that we in our beloved school still celebrate today.”
Evans was the son of former Dallas Mayor Jack Evans and Gene Sachse Evans, descendent of Sachse’s founding family. After a brief stint in the Army reserve, he began a lengthy and distinguished banking career, first as president of White Rock National Bank and finally as head of Grand Bank. He has served the Salesmanship Club, State Fair of Texas Board, American Heart Association Foundation, Constantine Foundation, Roy Gene & Pamela Evans Foundation, Presbyterian Hospital Foundation, and Southwestern Medical Foundation, among other causes and organizations. Governor George W. Bush appointed him to the UNT Board of Regents, and he is an avid supporter of Bonton Farms.
“My mother and dad in 1956 decided that we were going to live in the country, and they bought seven acres approximately at Audelia and Forest Lane,” recalled Evans, who rose at 5:30 a.m. with brothers Corky and Craig to feed the animals and share other chores. “I met Pame in math class in 1959 and asked her to go steady, and surprisingly, she said yes. That’s where it started.”
Despite his success in business, Evans admitted he rarely spent high school days focused on his studies.
“I was in the first (graduating) class, and I kind of hate to say this, but my activities were all sports related. I played all the sports I could through my sophomore year. My junior year I just played football and ran track and high-jumped and ran the 440 (yard dash) in track. A few of us played both ways in football, and I played quarterback and safety.”
Evans had high praise for three teachers who particularly stood out in his memory for supporting him decades ago — Nell Jennings, LaQuita McMillan and fellow honoree Sue Passmore.
“Sue Passmore taught me English, and she was tough on me, but I liked her. Later in life, after she had retired and we were all doing whatever we were doing after college, a number of us would invite her to lunch. Always, when I would see her, I’d say, ‘I’ll buy your lunch today if you will change my grade.’”
“All my life I wanted to be like Roy Gene,” said Alan Walne, another honoree. “Now that I’m 72 years old, I still want to be like he is.”
Dr. Bob and Catherine Iden
Dr. Bob Iden also received the Distinguished Alumni Award. Iden demonstrated leadership and sportsmanship as a student-athlete at LHHS and earned a football scholarship to Kilgore Junior College. There, he became an All-American linebacker and was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame. He returned to LHHS as a teacher and coach, and he was part of the 1981 team which earned a state football championship. After stints in Winona and Fredericksburg, he became principal in 1996. During his tenure, LHHS flourished.
“It’s a great school, and people take pride in being here,” Iden said. “That’s a tradition. It’s a legacy. It’s part of our heritage and our spirit. I spent eleven years, and it was wonderful. Absolutely great. (Earning) the Blue Ribbon School (designation) was huge. We got the AVID program started here. We were named an AVID National Demonstration School. It was during that time that Newsweek magazine recognized our school for advanced placement performance.”
LHHS was also honored with the 2002 Dallas Coalition on Character and Values Character Counts Award and named a “Top High School in America” by U.S. News and World Report.
“For eleven years, Bob adopted and rightly referred to Lake Highlands with that motto — the School of Champions — and it has stuck, and we are grateful for that great name,” Rylander said.
Karen Clardy is a former RISD school board president, but before that she served as Iden’s executive assistant, retiring from RISD after 25 years.
“We needed a really good, strong leader, and in 1997 he walked through the door,” Clardy recalled. “It was kind of like a Wizard of Oz, where it’s black and white when you first watch the movie, and then they come into Oz and it’s like technicolor. It’s just ‘boom.’ That was Bob Iden.”
“I think it’s the spirit and the people here, because we know that we’re unique, and we know that we have a special place — the school and the community,” Iden said. “The support is phenomenal. I think the future is extremely bright. The current principal, Kerri Jones, is just a phenom, as far as I’m concerned.”
Barry Sorrels is a veteran criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor recognized by peers for outstanding white-collar work. He’s also a classmate and admirer of Iden’s, and he says teachers, students, teammates and classmates are all justly proud of Dr. Bob.
“It just feels right for his legacy to be honored like this. The most important thing is that this validates the fact that he made a difference in helping so many people, mostly students, become the best that they could possibly be. He has a knack for seeing potential in people and knowing how to help them improve and be their best selves.”
Bill and Sue Passmore at their wedding
Bill and Sue Passmore were posthumously given the Lake Highlands Distinguished Service Award, and their children, Julie and Jeff, were on hand to receive it. Sue was widely known as “The Original Wildcat,” because she was the first student teacher in the LH feeder pattern. Bill was called “The Father of Lake Highlands Education” by the Lake Highlands Historical Association in 2004.
“Dad said one day he saw an ad in the Dallas Morning News that a Richardson school needed a business teacher,” recalled Julie Passmore Cincotta. “He said he’d heard of Richardson, that it was a small, little country town that was far north from downtown Dallas. He looked into it, and once he found out that they were on the same phone system as Dallas and phone calls wouldn’t be long distance from Richardson, he was willing to apply. So he made an appointment, and on a Sunday afternoon, he drove over to (Superintendent) Dr. J.J. Pearce’s house and interviewed and was given a job as a part-time business teacher and part-time assistant to the superintendent. That’s where everything really started. He had a very good relationship with Dr. Pearce. They were very close. In fact, my initials are JJP after Dr. Pearce.”
Sue graduated from North Texas State Teachers College, now UNT, majoring in English and French. After student teaching eighth graders at Wallace in 1959, she was ready for full-time employment.
“She interviewed for her first full-time teaching job at Richardson High School with the principal, Mr. Passmore, and that was the first time they met,” Julie said. “Now, my mother’s version is that my father gave her all these horrible classes so that she would leave the building. She would be so unhappy that she would leave the building, and then he could ask her out. He never really confirmed that, but I think there was some truth to it.”
The couple later adopted Jeff. Then they adopted Julie.
“My father’s talent was to open new schools. When Lake Highlands Elementary opened, Dr. Pearce sent him to open it. Then he had to leave Lake Highlands Elementary because he opened the new building of Richardson High School. Then, when Merriman Park was opening, he opened that school as well. He also opened two campuses of the Dallas County Community Colleges — El Centro and Richland.”
Julie said her parents were very special, but she doesn’t call them teachers.
“They were educators. It was very important to them, and they excelled at it. But more than that, they genuinely cared about their students. They loved their students. My mother would tell her students she loved them, and she meant it.”
Over the course of several milestones, Sue has been interviewed and videotaped as a jewel of the community.
She recalled her husband and other fine principals, and she remembered the students and parents who made Lake Highlands special.
“Lake Highlands was built around the schools,” she said then. “There’s a different feel to it, but it’s still a very special place to live. It is a place that is committed to its history. It’s a place that wants to learn from its history. And all of these people that have turned out and become such outstanding young people from one end of this country to, well, all over the world, really, they still come back home. They remember where their roots are.”
Alan and Joan Walne
The Lake Highlands Distinguished Wildcat Award went to Joan and Alan Walne.
“As one letter of support for them stated, their council is always wise, their actions are always helpful and their involvement is always 100%,” said Rylander. “They lead by example, and no job is too small and no problem too challenging.”
“In 1955, we moved onto the ‘L’ streets when Lynbrook and that entire area was under construction,” said Alan. “They were all new homes. (Herb’s Paint and Body) had taken the Humble oil station at the corner of Northwest Highway and Easton Road.”
Alan’s father, Herb, founded the company which grew to eight locations throughout the Metroplex. Herb shared lessons about cars and business with his son, but he also stressed the importance of being part of a community.
“Dad always wanted to make sure that we understood that, you’re taking from the neighborhood and in our particular business, were living here and everything. People were doing business with us, and we needed to give back.”
“We knew we wanted to use the public schools,” added Joan. “We had a commitment to public education, and we were right down the street from our elementary school. I was one of the first parents asked to be on the local school council, which was an emerging concept.”
“We could not have asked for a better experience than we had at Wallace Elementary,” agreed Alan. “They were fantastic.”
From those early days, the Walnes began leading various organizations and efforts across the neighborhood, including PTAs, LH Women’s League, LH Exchange Club, Young Life, Wildcat Club and many others. They then broadened their outlook to aid the city at large.
“Out of the blue, (then-District 10 City Council Member) Donna Halstead asked if I would consider running for council, nothing that I’d really considered before,” remembered Alan. “I said, well, let me think about it. And that night she was having people call and thank me for running, which was kind of the end of my thought process of whether I was going to run or not. I enjoyed (serving) greatly. Ron Kirk was a great mayor. I had a lot of fun working with him. We got a lot of wonderful things done during that period of time.”
From there, the couple lent their leadership to the Dallas Park Board, Dallas Arboretum Board, Dallas Zoo, State Fair of Texas, Salesmanship Club, Trinity Commons, Parkland Hospital Board, Methodist Hospital Board, Dallas Sports Commission, among others.
“Joan and Alan are the kind of neighbors that every community is so grateful to have,” said Robin Moss Norcross. “They are thoughtful and generous in the ways that count the most.”
“As far as I’m concerned, they’re royalty,” added Iden. “I call them the King and Queen of Lake Highlands. Their handprint is on everything that is right and good about Lake Highlands. And I love that their family is all here, and they’re going to carry on because there they’ve been raised by wonderful parents who have values and virtues and the character that we value.”
The Lake Highlands High School Education Foundation was established in 2021 as a 501c3 nonprofit serving as the umbrella organization for the school’s academic booster club, Wild For Cats, and the LHHS Alumni Association. If you’d like to make a contribution, join the association or join the mailing list, check out the website here. Nominations for next year’s awards will be accepted over the coming year.
