Two Outstanding Athletes From The 1940s To Receive Hall Of Fame Awards For Heroic Military Service At New York City Dinner On July 7th

Pelham natives Lt. Col Eli Page Howard Jr. and Lt. Eugene Lee Evans, two outstanding high school and college athletes who gave their lives during military service will receive posthumous awards from the African American Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame at their ceremony and dinner to be held in New York City on July 7th. End Quote

Pictures of Lt. Eugene Evans in Korea during 1953 and LTC Eli Page Howard in Vietnam during 1969

(1888PressRelease) July 01, 2007 - The American Legion
For God and country

PELHAM POST 50,
The Department of New York
Sons of the American Legion, Squadron 50
BOX 293, PELHAM, NY 10803
USA

Contact: Ken Kraetzer (914) 450-9554 kgk914 ( @ ) aol dot com
or John Chuhran, (914) 235-5523 or jtchuhran ( @ ) aol dot com

More Information available at www.legionpost50ny.com

Two Pelham Veterans to be honored by Sports Hall of Fame on July 7th.

PMHS and Morgan State stars were killed during service in Korea and Vietnam

Pelham, N.Y. – Pelham natives Lt. Col Eli Page Howard Jr. and Lt. Eugene Lee Evans, two outstanding high school and college athletes killed during military service will receive posthumous awards from the African American Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame at their ceremony and dinner to be held in New York City on July 7th.

The award was announced by Arif Khatib, Founder And President, African American Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame, Global Ethnic Sports Hall of Fame based in Oakland, California. http:www.afrosportshall.com. Mr. Khatib is also Publisher and Managing Editor of African American Sports Magazine. Commenting on this award, "These gentlemen were outstanding athletes and paid the ultimate price defending our country and deserve to be honored along with our other inductees from the past who have contributed so much to American Sports."

The induction honorees that night will be Tony Oliva (Baseball), Wayne “Tree” Rollins (Basketball), Dr. Lillian Greene-Chamberlain (Track & Field), Nate “Tiny” Archibald (Basketball), Pancho Gonzalez (Tennis), Mark Breland (Boxing), Dr. Herbert Carnegie (Hockey), Ken Hudson (Basketball), Joe Bostic (Journalist), and Matt Snell of the New York Jets (Football).

The Black Tie (Optional) awards dinner will be held on July 7th from 6:00 p.m. until10:00 p.m. at the Alhambra Ballroom located at 2116 Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. at 126th Street in Harlem (www.alhambraballroom.com).

For tickets on-line are available
at www.afrosportshall.com
or call 1-510-508- 3309.

1st Lieut. Eugene Lee Evans, US Army was a four letter athlete during his years at Pelham Memorial High School in New York, a graduate of the class of 1945. He played three years of varsity football and was captain of the 1944 team. Known as “Dippy” to his friends, he was selected as All-County and All-Metropolitan football end, in basketball he was All-County center, he led the baseball team with a batting average of .444, and was the star high jumper of the school track team. He was chosen a member of the Student Council and was elected Secretary of his class in 1945.

After service in the US Marine Corps, Lt. Evans enrolled at Morgan State College in Baltimore where he was an end on the undefeated football team which won 19 games and the National and CIAA championships in 1949. He was a member of the Student Council; vice president of the Physical Education Majors club; commissioner of the intramural athletics, and student representative to the Committee on Intercollegiate athletics. Prior to his college graduation he was asked back to his high school to serve as a student assistant in the Physical Education department for the last three months of his senior year resulting in praise from the Supt. Of Schools W.W. Fairclough and Principal F. Hamilton Whipple.

At his graduation at Morgan State in June 1951, he received his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant of the United States Army. The next April he was sent to Korea as a member of the 32nd Regiment of the 7th Infantry Division. On the night of July 19, 1952, Lt. Evans led a small unit of soldiers across enemy lines to scout positions. They ran into an ambush and one soldier escaped, one was taken prisoner, and Lt. Evans was killed in service to our country. First Lieutenant Eugene Lee Evans was awarded the Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman's Badge, the Korean Service Medal, the United Nations Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Korean Presidential Unit Citation and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal. The son of Mr. and Mrs. Mack N. Evans of Pelham was the husband of Mrs. Mildred Onley Evans of New Rochelle, NY.

Lt. Col. Eli Page Howard, Jr. US Army, known as “Tim” was a co-captain and halfback of the undefeated 1945 Pelham Memorial High School football team which outscored its opponents 183 to 13. he was known as the “Touchdown King” After service as US Marine, Howard joined his Pelham friend and teammate, Eugene “Dippy” Evans at Morgan State College in Baltimore. In college he made Cadet Commander in the ROTC program and was a four year letterman in both basketball and football. With “Dippy” Evans at end and Tim Howard at quarterback Morgan State was undefeated in football during 1949 and won the CIAA national championship team. Lt. Col. Howard was a co-captain of that team and was later named to the Morgan State Athletic Hall of Fame.

LTC Howard went on to serve as an Army officer in Korea, Germany and Vietnam. In 1969, during his second tour in Vietnam he was named commander of the 3rd Battalion of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. While leading forces during a fierce August 1969 battle near Da Nang, his helicopter was shot down with no survivors. It took US soldiers five days to fight their way to the crash site. Lt. Col Eli Page Howard is interred at section 39 of Arlington National Cemetery, in the row behind his father a WWI veteran. He is honored on panel 19W row 68 of the Vietnam Wall in Washington DC. and at the New York Vietnam Memorial near Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. Surviving Col. Howard were his wife, Mrs. Joan G. Howard and five children: two daughters, Lisa and Deirdre; three sons: Norman, Eli 3rd, and Kevin; and his mother, Mrs. Eli P. Howard, Sr. of Middleburgh, Virginia who after her death was interred with her husband at Arlington in the row in front of her son.

The stories of Lt. Evans and Col. Howard were found by a research team from Post 50 with assistance from Pelham Memorial High School Social Studies teacher Maria Thompson and her students. In honor of 2007 being the 25th anniversary of the building of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C, the story of Col. Howard along with those of seven other Pelham natives lost during the Vietnam Era was read at Pelham’s Memorial Day ceremony on May 28th. The Wall of Honor bears the names of 58,195 members of the American military – including six Pelham natives – who gave their lives in this conflict.

The American Legion, with 2.7 million members, is the world's largest veteran's association. The Department of New York is one of The American Legion’s largest state organizations with 1,003 local “Posts” and membership of more than 170,000 Legionnaires. Post 50 in Pelham, N.Y., commanded in 2006-2007 by Phillip Perrorazio, organizes Pelham's Memorial Day parade and has served as a Fleet Week host the past five years. Throughout the year, Post 50 conducts a variety of projects to support veterans, active military members and the local community. In 2005, Post 50 initiated and participated in ceremonies commemorating the 60th anniversary of the end of the Italian Campaign of World War II at the American Battle Monument Commission maintained military cemeteries at Florence and Nettuno, Italy.

More information is available at www.legionpost50ny.com

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