Evelyn Lawler Lewis, Tuskegee HOF Member, co-founder of the Willingboro Track Club and mother of track and field legends Carl and Carol Lewis, died on Tuesday January 3rd in Willingboro, NJ.
She caught the eye of Major Cleve Abbott, the athletic director at Tuskegee Institute, and with his help she became the first in her family to go to college.
At Tuskegee, Evelyn Lawler studied to be a physical-education teacher and she ran the hurdles. Also at Tuskegee, Evelyn met and married William McKinley Lewis Jr., football player, sprinter and long jumper who was studying to be a teacher. In 1951, the year she graduated, Evelyn made the team that went to the first Pan American Games, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she finished sixth in the 80-meter hurdles.
She was a member of the Tuskegee University Hall of Fame, Class of 1985.