Lawrence Evans

By Kevin Kirkland / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Lawrence F. Evans wasn't like most Pittsburgh activists of the 1980s. A steelworker and self-taught journalist, he made his point without being pointed.

"A lot of activists were strident," said his ex-wife, Leslie Evans-Zamule. "Larry would take the humorous approach. Oh, he knew his facts, but he'd say, 'Let's do this peacefully. Let's have a good time, and if we can, let's work sports into it.' "

Mr. Evans' car struck another vehicle Saturday on Ohio River Boulevard in Bellevue. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner's office said Sunday he might have had a medical event before the crash. An autopsy is set for today.

His family said he had left his home in Mt. Lebanon to attend a book-signing Downtown for his recently published memoir, "Viking Women Don't Care: Wrestling with Baltimore." Its title — like his life and writing — is an irreverent jumble of strong opinions, comedy and good intentions.

"It was his heart and soul that brought us together," said his wife, Karen. "He was extremely free-spirited, a risk-taker in life. ... He liked to be on a soapbox. His writing was a way to be on that soapbox and not give you the option to walk away."

Mr. Evans was born and raised in Lutherville, Md., a suburb of Baltimore. When he was 3, his father, a steelworker who lost his job because of his political affiliations, committed suicide. He graduated from Loyola high school and university in Maryland, excelling as a wrestler but also enjoying football, baseball and basketball. Shortly after his college graduation, he joined the VISTA national service corps and worked in a Florida migrant camp.

Upon returning to Baltimore, he became a reporter for Harry, an underground newspaper. His assignments included covering rock festivals. In Pittsburgh, he "met so many people just as hyper-activist as me that I stuck around," he later wrote.

Mr. Evans worked as a laborer for several years at U.S. Steel's Edgar Thomson Works and in 1979, founded the Mill Hunk Herald, a quarterly magazine written by and about steelworkers. Ms. Evans-Zamule asked him to speak to her English and journalism students at Steel Valley High School.

"He was a writer who had found his voice, and he encouraged that in the people he interviewed," she said, recalling how he interviewed steelworkers at Chiodo's and other bars, writing their stories in longhand.

After he was laid off from the mill, Mr. Evans made deliveries for the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank, worked as a group home counselor, and became editor of two community newspapers, The Bloomfield-Garfield Bulletin and The Northside Chronicle.

Randy Zotter of the North Side met him in the early 1980s at a protest against banks denying mortgages on the North Side. "Larry would stand up and say enough is enough," Mr. Zotter said. "People all over the region are still benefiting from what he did."

In November 2010, Mr. Evans wrote an essay for the Post-Gazette about his adventures in local journalism, "How We Punched It Out: From Mill Hunk Herald to Northside Chronicle."

He taped interviews for a weekly community access TV program, "Steel Valley Stories" and produced cultural and sports segments for "Our Own Show." During a graduate fellowship at Rutgers University in 1989, he led an oral history project comparing Pittsburgh steelworkers and Soviet miners in Pittsburgh's sister city, Donetsk, Ukraine. The hour-long documentary aired on PBS and on stations in Britain and the Ukraine.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Evans managed indoor soccer centers in the North Hills and Green Tree and sold synthetic turf. Describing himself as semi-retired, he was an active member of the Mt. Lebanon Democratic Committee and a board member for Mt. Lebanon Village, a nonprofit that helps seniors remain in their homes. He had recently begun teaching a class in oral history and memoir writing at the Carnegie Mellon University Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

Besides his wife and ex-wife, Mr. Evans is survived by his brother, Jeffrey Evans of Arnold, Md.; a son, Darren "Ducky" Evans of New York City; and a daughter, Jennifer Evans of Washington, D.C. Visitation will be 2-4 p.m. and 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, with a 7:30 p.m. memorial service at William Slater II Funeral Service, 1650 Greentree Road, Green Tree (15220).