Everett Slavens, longtime Ouachita history professor, remembered as “profile in courage”
May 16, 2017 - OBU News Bureau
Dr. G. Everett Slavens, professor emeritus of history at Ouachita Baptist University,
passed away at the age of 85 on May 15 in Las Cruces, N.M., where he had lived since
2010.
Dr. Slavens was known as a dedicated teacher and mentor for many students and young
colleagues throughout his career and maintained lifelong relationships with them.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts and PhD degrees in history at the University
of Missouri, Columbia. He taught at the School of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo.,
and began a 36-year teaching career at Ouachita in 1961, where he was chairman of
the history department and retired in 1997.
“The most gratifying thing for me as a teacher is the opportunity to help people grow,”
Dr. Slavens noted as he reflected on his teaching career. “I want so much to let students
know that there’s a whole other world out there beyond their own.”
“Dr. Slavens served many year as head of Ouachita’s then division of social sciences,
which he left much stronger than he found it,” said Dr. Randall Wight, dean of Ouachita’s
Sutton School of Social Sciences. “As history department chair, he assembled and presided
over a sterling group of colleagues. He gave campus voice to a scholar’s aspirations
of teaching and research.
“He arranged his life so that nobody felt sorry for him,” Dr. Wight added. “Everett
was a profile in courage, a figure of lore. For generations of students and colleagues,
his name conjures a Ouachita not lost to the mists of time.”
During his teaching career, he participated in National Endowment for the Humanities
Summer Seminars at Boston College, Vanderbilt University, Yale University and the
University of California, Berkeley, as well as a seminar in South Africa, where he
met President Nelson Mandela.
Following his retirement, he moved to The Woodlands Texas, where he participated in
volunteer programs with The Woodlands Community Presbyterian Church in Mexico and
Zambia. He also volunteered in programs in prisons and nursing homes. He was an active
member of the Care Team, devoting much of his time to AIDS and Alzheimer’s groups.
He also served as an elder in the Presbyterian churches where he lived and was a delegate
to the General Assembly.
He is survived by his children, Margaret Evans, Rebecca Bowen and Douglas Slavens;
his grandchildren, Neil Evans, Kyle Evans, Lauren Slavens, Jacob Marquez, Rachael
Bowen and Matthew Bowen; and his great granddaughters, Ava and Kate Evans. He also
is survived by three sisters, three nieces, one nephew and their families. Memorial
services will be held June 3 at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Arkadelphia,
Ark., and June 10 in Las Cruces, N.M. Memorial gifts may be made to the Ouachita Baptist
University Cornerstone Fund.
May 16, 2017
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