In 1988, she was arrested for selling
cocaine to an undercover Dallas police officer. When she
violated her probation by not reporting to her probation
officer, Evans was sent to prison for 21 months.
"My addiction didn't stop through
the '90s. I was homeless. I was in jails. I was in rehab
five times," she said.
In 1994, she gave birth to a
daughter.
In May 2001, Evans checked into a
rehabilitation program that would finally work for her:
First Choice at the Salvation Army in Fort Worth.
This time, Evans was determined.
Deborah Bullock, a staff member at the Salvation Army, could
see the steely resolve that Evans put toward turning her
life around.
"She's always been a fighter. She's
come into a lot of obstacles, but she just keeps her head up
and keeps on going," Bullock said. "From the first time I
ever met Delora, I think she's always been determined.
"I don't remember her ever being
discouraged."
Evans said the program worked
because it was holistic. She was homeless, and it gave her a
place to live. She was an addict, and it gave her
counseling.
After years of abusing drugs, she
was clueless about how to manage her life.
"You get to be 35 or 40 and you
don't know the first thing about living. You don't know how
to pay bills. You don't know how to balance a checkbook,"
Evans said.
The program helped her with life
skills such as budgeting, stress management, meal
preparation and exercise.
Evans, who lives in Fort Worth,
took some of that focus-on-the-basics-first philosophy when
she enrolled at Tarrant County College.
"I went to anything that I could
get information from, anything that could help me become a
college student," she said.
She earned her associate degree
from TCC in 2004, and her fourth child, a daughter, was born
the next year.
By the time she enrolled at UNT,
Evans was a serious college student.
Linda Holloway, chairwoman of UNT's
department of rehabilitation, social work and addiction,
said Evans was a hardworking student who could compare her
experiences as a former drug user with the research she was
studying.
"She's always prepared and on top
of things and challenges you," Holloway said.
"She would bring up her past, and
she used that a lot in how she prepared herself and what she
thought was realistic."
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