Leaving a Legacy

BayouIcon Bennie Evans, Jr.’s Innovative Spirit Leads Evans Oil Company Toward the Future

By Kay Stothart Rector | Photography by Kelly Moore Clark

Bennie Evans, Jr. is not a man who relishes attention. Humble and unpretentious, he tends to shy away from accolades. He likens himself to the Wizard of Oz, more comfortable working behind the scenes than in the spotlight. Evans is the owner and president of Evans Oil Company, a business founded by his father, Bennie Evans, Sr., more than a half-century ago. In 1966, Evans, Sr. became a consignee for Lion Oil Company, a supplier of petroleum products out of El Dorado, Arkansas. In the beginning, Evans, Sr. and his wife Betty Jo were the company’s only employees. She handled the paperwork, acting as office manager and bookkeeper, while he sold gasoline. Evans, Jr. began working in the family’s business as a teenager, pumping gas, driving fuel trucks, repairing equipment and helping his father wherever he was needed.

As an “oil jobber,” an antiquated term for marketers of petroleum, Evans Oil Company grew its business by supplying Lion products to customers across north Louisiana. Evans’ affiliation with Lion Oil ended when Lion discontinued the retail segment of its operation. Evans bought out another local petroleum company and, with that purchase, acquired the Fina brand. Marketing petroleum products for Petrofina, branded as “Fina,” Evans Oil continued to increase its customer base. From modest beginnings, the company slowly grew.

“My dad started signing contracts with mom-and-pop stores out in the country all over north Louisiana,” says Evans. “He supplied fuel to people that were running their own stores, and we still do that today,” Evans says. “We have built locations and leased them to operators,” he explains. “I never have liked running convenience stores. I would rather be a partner.” The U-Pak-It chain of stores, developed by Evans, is an outgrowth of this concept. Each U-Pak-It store is independently owned and operated.
As a young college student, Evans had no plans to join his father in the petroleum business. “I didn’t have the vision that my father had at that time,” Evans says. Instead, he attended Northeast Louisiana University with a view toward becoming a veterinarian. Evans laughingly recalls that organic chemistry classes and a job in a vet clinic helped alter those plans.
While he had grown to hate the smell of diesel and laborious tasks like repairing gas pumps, Evans found the atmosphere of the veterinary clinic where he worked after school to be stifling. He eventually changed his college major and begin to consider the family business as a career.
Evans met his wife Sharon while at NLU. By the time they were married he was actively involved in Evans Oil Company on a full time basis. Through acquisition of other petroleum companies and increased sales, the business experienced considerable growth. Evans gradually assumed more responsibility for the company’s day-to-day operations.

Bennie Evans, Sr. passed away in 1992, after developing a malignant brain tumor. “When my dad passed away I wasn’t ready,” says Evans. “I was running the operations, but I wasn’t ready to be the strategic person.”
“My dad was an icon, not me,” insists Evans. “He is the reason we are successful.” He describes his father as a visionary who was always looking for ways to improve service. “My father and a man named Pete Caldwell pioneered self-serve gasoline in North Louisiana,” says Evans. Before self-service fueling, retail customers bought gasoline at full-service stations manned by attendants who pumped gas into their vehicles.

In 1990, just before his father’s diagnosis, Evans Oil switched from Fina to the Citgo petroleum brand. The company spent the next 15 years as a Citgo affiliate before accepting an opportunity with Chevron. “We still have some Citgo sites, but we’re predominately Chevron and Texaco now,” Evans says. “Ironically, we pull product in this part of the state out of a terminal that my dad and one of his business partners sold to Citgo that Chevron now operates.”

Despite his humility, Evans’ own contributions to the success of his family’s business are undeniable. While overseeing the company’s operations in Louisiana, Evans held multiple national leadership positions. During his tenure as a Fina marketer, Evans served on Petrofina’s national advisory council. “I worked with George Overstreet, an economics professor at the University of Virginia, who led our group. That was a lot of fun,” Evans recalls.

He served two three-year terms on Citgo’s national advisory council, acting as council chairman during both terms. After retiring as chairman of the advisory board, Evans was chosen to lead Citgo’s newly formed Image and Concepts Best Practices committee. For five years Evans chaired that committee, made up of Citgo distributors from all over the country, working to develop new marketing concepts.

Evans was appointed to serve on Chevron’s advisory council after Evans Oil became a Chevron marketer. He also spent 12 years on the Louisiana Oil Marketers & Convenience Store Association’s board of directors. His leadership and involvement on the state and national level has provided growth opportunities within his own business.

“We were the first company to process credit cards electronically,” says Evans, “This happened because we were able to run that pilot test with Citgo.” Evans says he has tried to follow his father’s lead in embracing innovative ideas and working to make processes more efficient.
Part of the company’s expansion has come through acquisition of other companies. Large acquisitions were more difficult in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before advanced computer technology. “As we started to grow, the acquisitions were hard because of absorbing all of the data,” says Evans. “Technology wasn’t always available for data to transfer easily.”

To address this problem, Evans worked with a friend who was a designer with IBM to develop an idea which eventually became Autosend. “Autosend is megahertz technology, the tones you hear on touchtone phones,” explains Evans. “We figured out how to use touchtone phones to transfer data—pump readings, tank stickings, store numbers and other information—and we wrote a program called Autosend.”

To make the Autosend software program usable, Evans enlisted the help of Dr. Bob Canterbury, a professor of computer programming at NLU. Canterbury had written an accounting software program designed specifically for petroleum marketers called Complete Oil Marketers Perpetual Accounting System, or COMPAS. Canterbury was able to incorporate Autosend into his company, Applied Information Management Sciences.

“It just took off,” Evans remembers. “At some point they had clients in 30 different states using Autosend.” AIMS is now run by Dr. Canterbury’s son, Robert Canterbury, and is a leading provider of accounting and inventory management software for the wholesale petroleum industry.

The same innovative spirit that has made Evans Oil Company successful gave birth to the Evans family’s newest venture, Daily Press. Daily Press was created from a concept that is completely different from the typical convenience store model. “What we noticed as we were developing Daily Press is that people don’t have a lot of time, but they want quality fresh food,” Evans says.

“We have four ladies working in our office that are single moms, and they will usually take their lunch hour to do errands and then bring back lunch to eat at their desks. What we came to realize is that they so much going on after work—soccer, homework, baths and that sort of thing—that they need to get errands done and grab a healthy lunch in a hurry,” Evans explains. “We started asking women—my daughters, my wife, friends—what they would like.” The consensus was that people want convenience without sacrificing quality.

“We set up a test center and started bringing in food brokers and food suppliers, and we traveled all over the country studying food products,” Evans says. “We were looking for a niche, and we wanted to be in the food business without selling alcohol or tobacco products.”

Daily Press may look like a convenience store from the outside, with Chevron branding and pay-at-the-pump fueling stations. Once inside, however, customers find a diverse offering of food and beverages prepared fresh with quality ingredients in lieu of pre-packaged convenience store fare. A deli counter with touch-screen ordering serves hot pressed sandwiches and flatbread pizza. They also offer chicken salad, fresh wraps and sandwiches, baked goods, gourmet coffees and frozen yogurt in a clean, brightly lit and pleasantly decorated atmosphere.

The first Daily Press location opened in 2012, at the corner of Forsythe Extension and U.S. Highway 165 in Monroe. There are now four locations in Ouachita Parish, with plans for a massive expansion of stores along the I-20 interstate corridor.

In addition to national recognition as a leader in the petroleum marketing industry, Evans has been commended for his outstanding contributions to the local community. In 2015, Evans received the Kitty DeGree Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in Business. In association with the Monroe Chamber of Commerce, this prestigious award is presented annually to an individual who exemplifies excellence in business and has demonstrated outstanding achievements throughout their career.

To qualify for the Lifetime Achievement Award, recipients must have 1) owned or served in a major administrative level position at a Ouachita Parish business for at least 20 years; 2) assisted in expansions, acquisitions, and/or growth of the business resulting in new products or services, increased profitability and additional employment; and 3) showed exceptional vision and ingenuity while exhibiting outstanding professionalism in business.

Over a career spanning four decades, Evans has developed Evans Oil Company into one of Louisiana’s top fuel distributors. “Our business has grown organically, and I’m proud of that,” says Evans. Implementing values and practices instilled by his father, Evans has avoided debt and created financial stability for the company. “We now have 100 sites,” Evans says. “Most of our sites are not in Ouachita Parish, but our epicenter is here in Monroe.”

“We’ve employed a lot of local people over the years,” Evans notes. “We’ve helped create a lot of small businesses, and they have in turn hired a lot of people to help run them.” Through creative problem-solving and collaboration with fellow business owners, Evans has empowered others to achieve success.

Evans Oil Company continues to be a family-run and family-focused enterprise. Bennie, Jr. and Sharon have three children—Lindsay Evans King, Jared Evans and Hallie Evans Dye—as well as seven grandchildren. An eighth grandchild is due to arrive in October.

Jared Evans oversees marketing for both Daily Press and Evans Oil Company. Evans’ son-in-law Jeff King handles general operations for the business. Son-in-law Andrew Dye takes care of logistics, keeping track of liquid inventory and monitoring and dispatching Evans Oil’s trucks. Jared Evans, Jeff King and Andrew Dye all serve on an advisory team charged with developing the Daily Press brand.

Evans is quick to note that their most sage advice comes from the ladies of the family—wife Sharon, daughters Lindsay King and Hallie Dye, and daughter-in-law Lisa Evans. Evans’ sister, Suzanne Evans Underwood, who has been involved with the company since its inception, also helps with the marketing and development of Daily Press.

Evans is gradually handing the reins to the family business over to the next generation, giving him time to pursue other interests. When asked to describe his hobbies, he rattles off a list of activities, most of which seem to benefit others as much as himself.

Evans gives generously of his time and financial resources to honor the veterans of World War II. “I take World War II veterans to New Orleans for a hobby,” says Evans. “I put them on a plane with me, we fly down, spend the day and tour the World World II Museum. It’s really a hoot. I love doing it.” Evans also sponsors events at the Chennault Aviation Museum and meets many war veterans through the museum.

He is passionate about preserving the stories of what these veterans experienced. “This is a group of people that as young boys were thrown onto beaches in Europe, and had to either die or fight. Other than the Civil War, we’ve never really had a war like that,” Evans emphasizes. He notes that WWII veterans are dying at a rate of about 300 per day. Unless their narratives are recorded in some way, these stories die with them.

Evans’ other hobbies include adopting retired bird dogs out of Kentucky and spending time at Horseshoe Lodge, which he describes as a “haven for old men and little boys.” An avid fisherman, Evans also makes fishing jigs by hand, using animal hair to create colorful lures for catching white perch.
Most mornings Evans can be found in his workshop, a converted greenhouse overlooking Bayou Desiard, bent over his workbench carefully tying hair jigs. His workshop is strewn with brightly colored paint, deer pelts and horsehair, with extra workstations set up for his grandchildren who often join him there.

Evans’ home on the bayou is a place of respite but also a hub of activity when the grandchildren visit. A rusty gas pump bearing the Lion Oil Company logo sits on the back porch. This relic, a gift from Sharon, serves as a reminder of the company’s modest beginnings. “I used to pump gas from a pump just like this one,” recalls Evans. So much has changed since those days, but Evans feels confident that the family business is in good hands and that his parents’ legacy will succeed into the future with the next generation.