Obituaries for Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004

By Staff
Retired merchant, farmer and cattleman
MACON Services for Augustus Temple "Gus" Evans will be held Monday at 2 p.m. at Shuqualak Baptist Church with the Revs. Bro. John Kittrell, Bro. Don Tew and Bro. Roy Hawkins officiating. Burial will be in Shuqualak Cemetery with Cockrell Funeral Home in charge of arrangements.
Mr. Evans, 73, of Shuqualak, died Friday, Jan. 9, 2004, at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center. He was born in Meridian on Oct. 26, 1930 and lived in Shuqualak for most of his 73 years. He was owner and manager of E.F. Nunn and Company and farmed cotton and soybeans and raised cattle until retiring in 1996.
Mr. Evans won many awards and distinctions for his involvement in farming, including: Director and Past President, Mississippi Soybean Association; Past President, Mississippi Association of Conservation Districts; Director and Past President, Association of Mississippi Agricultural Organization; Cotton Farming Magazine's "Cotton Farmer of the Year 1968," Progressive Farmer Magazine's "Mississippi Man of the Year in Agriculture Award 1980," and Outstanding District Commissioner, Mississippi Association of Conservation Districts, 1980.
Mr. Evans was an avid conservationist and worked with the Department of Agriculture at Mississippi State University. He was an innovator in no-cultivation weed control farming and land forming, enabling a farmer to make more efficient use of his land.
Not only did Mr. Evans excel in farming, he was also heavily involved in his community. He served as Chairman of the Board of Deacons of the Shuqualak Baptist Church, and was a Sunday School teacher there from 1957-2002. He was a Director of Bank First in Macon.
Mr. Evans began his education at Shuqualak Public School and graduated high school from Marion Military Institute in Marion, Ala. He attended the School of Mechanical Engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., from 1948-1950. He graduated in 1953 from the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi in Oxford with a BBA degree. He was commissioned into the United States Navy as a Lieutenant and was the executive officer on a minesweeper stationed in various Eastern seaports from 1953-1957, with his main base being in Charleston, S.C.
While in the Navy, Mr. Evans attended Naval Justice School in Newport, R.I. In 1957, he returned to Shuqualak with his wife, Carrie Scales Evans, originally from Livingston, Ala., to begin a distinguished career in farming and community involvement.
Survivors include his wife, Carrie Scales Evans of Shuqualak; two daughters, Jane Evans Atkins and her husband, Robert Hudson Atkins, of Memphis; and Semmes Evans Zazzara and her husband, Patrick Benedict Zazzara II, of Arlington, Va.; his son, Dr. Isham Harrison Evans and his wife, Betty Smith Evans, of Saltillo; five grandchildren, Elisha Franklin Evans, Lawrence King Holcomb, Carrie Horn Atkins, William Augustus Kost and Patrick Benedict Zazzara III; and his brother, Dr. Franklin Temple Evans of Baltimore, Md.
He was preceded in death by his parents, Isham Harrison Evans Jr. and Gladys Temple Evans Powe; and his brother, Isham Harrison Evans III.
Visitation will be one hour prior to the service at the church.
Homemaker
Services for Millie Combest will be held Tuesday at 2 p.m. at Berry &Gardner Funeral Home Chapel with the Rev. S.L. Thompson officiating. Burial will be in Chapel Hill Cemetery.
Mrs. Combest, 81, of Meridian, died Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2004, at her home.
Survivors include her daughter, Annie M. Thomas; her son, Willie Hildreth, both of Meridian; six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Visitation will be Monday from 6 p.m.-7 p.m. at the funeral home.
Family memorial services for Thomas Richard Cooper will be held at a later date. Barham Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Mr. Cooper, 63, of Meridian, died Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004, at his home.
Arrangements were incomplete at E.E. McDonald Funeral Home for Ora Dee Miller, formerly of Toomsuba, who died Friday, Jan. 9, 2004, at Long Beach Memorial Hospital in Long Beach, Calif.