Evia Merle Rodgers

The Celebration of Life for Mrs. Evia Merle Rodgers, 61, of Orange, will be Wednesday at 1:00 am, at the St. Paul C.M.E. Church.

Rites of Christian Burial will follow in Magnolia Memorial Gardens under the direction of Sparrow Funeral Home.

She died Thursday at Christus St. Mary Hospital in Port Arthur.

An Orange native, she was a 1968 graduate of Lutcher Stark High School. She was employed as a teacher’s aide and in the guidance counselor’s office in the West Orange-Cove School District before retiring.

Mrs. Rodgers was a former president of the Ministers Spouse’s Association of the Southeast Texas Region of the 8th Episcopal District of the C.M.E. Church.

Survivors include her husband, the Rev. Jimmy Rodgers of Orange; son, Christopher Lopez of Honolulu, HI; daughter, Delanie Lopez of Orange; seven brothers, Billy Gardener of Cincinnati, OH, Sylvester Nelson of Texarkana, TX, Vernon Grant and Corie Byrd, both of Houston, Ellis Byrd of Orange, Alvin Eugene Nelson of Albuquerque, NM and Alvin Nelson, Jr. of San Antonio; three sisters, Beverly Malbrough of Beaumont, Norma Roberts-Sanders of Pflugerville, and Lydia Garrett of Orange; and four grandchildren.