Contact: Sammy McDavid
At a 2 p.m. ceremony June 1, the G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery Center for America's Veterans at Mississippi State will dedicate its new day room in memory of a university alumnus killed in Iraq.
The program honors Air Force Capt. Kermit O. Evans Sr., a 31-year-old Hollandale native and 2000 chemical engineering graduate who died in 2006 when the helicopter in which he was traveling made an emergency water landing in Al Anbar Province.
Evans, a member of the 27th Civil Engineering Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., had been deployed with the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Iraq's Balad Air Base. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. (For more, visit www.arlingtoncemetery.net/koevans.htm.)
At MSU, the Simmons High School graduate was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and had been a walk-on player for a year with the MSU Bulldog football team. He also was a Coca-Cola Foundation Scholar.
The Center for America's Veterans (www.veterans.msstate.edu) is located in a former family housing unit at 126 Magruder St., just south of Hathorn Residence Hall.
At the ceremony's conclusion, a bust of Evans will be unveiled in the dayroom, a recently renovated area at the location specifically designed for the leisure and study activities of campus veterans.
For additional information on the event, telephone center director Andrew Rendon at 662-325-6720.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.