Joe McWilliams
Lakeside Leader

The founder and owner of Slave Lake’s oldest business passed away on February 8 at the age of 94. Generations of Slave Lakers knew Roy Evans as the Rex Theatre guy. He started the business all the way back in 1949, in partnership with Len Stiles.

According to a story about the Rex that appeared in The Leader a couple of years ago, the first few years the films were shown in the Legion. In the mid-1950s the first Rex building was constructed; the current building was built around it in 1972, and is still going strong in 2022.

Roy married Elizabeth (Betty) Larue in the same year he started his theatre business. He was working for Forestry at the time, and the story the kids heard was that right after the wedding, Roy had to head off on firefighting duty!

Roy was predeceased by Betty in 2008. He is survived by children Lew, Chris, Bruce, Brian, Darrell and Diana, plus numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A memorial service was held on Feb. 19.

Evans was born (in 1928) and raised in Calgary. According to information from the family, he left home at the age of 16, to work at the Carrot Creek fire lookout tower. It was another job with Forestry that brought him to the Slave Lake area, where he worked as a radio operator.

One memory people have about Roy was of him making an impression, riding through town on his big Indian motorcycle, often with the Nash brothers piled on behind him.

But it was the Rex Theatre that he was best known for, and it remains in the family.

Through the years Evans also operated the laundromat, the arcade, vending machines, and juke boxes in Slave Lake. He also built numerous commercial buildings, and spent some time on the Slave Lake hamlet council at the start of the oil boom in the early 1960s.

Roy was remembered at the memorial service as an unassuming man who didn’t like being the centre of attention. His daughter Chris recalled how, when the Chamber of Commerce named him businessman of the year, “he actually tried to bribe the Chamber into giving it to someone else!”

A piece on Roy and his theatre appeared in a 2007 edition of Alberta Venture magazine. It includes a photo of Roy, sitting alone in the Rex with a container of popcorn, a big smile on his face. In the article, Roy recalls that movies in the old days in Slave Lake were provided by a fellow with a projector that traveled from town to town. When he got married, he asked Roy if he’d like to run movies in Slave Lake. He did, and the rest is local history!