Frederick Dean McEvoy was born on December 17, 1935, to Jesse and Reita Smith McEvoy in North Platte, Nebraska . McEvoy gained his initial experience in archaeology in 1951, as a summer assistant on an archaeological dig in North Dakota, under the direction of Dr. Richard P. Wheeler . Upon graduation from North Platte High School in 1953, he entered the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, completing one year of course work as an anthropology major. McEvoy subsequently joined the U.S. Navy and was trained as an air traffic controller; he served in the Philippines from 1958 to 1961 . He married Hilda Seitz McEvoy in 1957 ; the couple had two daughters, Karen and Gwen. After discharge from the Navy in 1961 , McEvoy returned to the University of Nebraska, studying anthropology, with a focus on the Omaha Indians. Following graduation in 1964, he received a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellowship for graduate study in anthropology at the University of Oregon . Studying under Dr. Vernon Dorjahn, McEvoy was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship for field research in Liberia from 1967-1968 . Upon completion of his Ph.D. at University of Oregon, McEvoy taught anthropology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and subsequently at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia . While at Marshall University, McEvoy was also co-editor, along with Dr. Svend Holsoe, of volume 6 and 7 of the Liberian Studies Journal ( 1975-1977 ).
McEvoy left academia in 1979, moved to Denver, and initially worked for the non-profit organization, Denver Opportunity . From 1981 to 1989, he served as the Director of Research and Education at the Colorado State Civil Rights Division. In the mid-1990s, McEvoy worked for the West Virginia Division of Culture and History in Charleston . McEvoy relocated to his hometown of North Platte, Nebraska, in 2002 ; he passed away on April 1, 2007 .
From the guide to the Frederick Dean McEvoy, 1956-1979, (Liberian Collections http://www.onliberia.org)
