Chris Evans didn’t foresee himself where he is now, but he knows that teaching drama was what he was meant to do.

“How many times during your work day, can you say ‘I’m having a blast’?” Evans said.

As the CMR drama and stagecraft teacher, Evans comes to school each day excited and eager to teach his enthusiastic students important skills that he has accumulated over the years.

“It’s recharged me,” Evans said of his teaching job.

As a football player at CMR in the 1980s, Evans said he was a shy kid who wasn’t very social. However, when a friend introduced him to drama class, a whole new world was discovered. He ended up liking the class, and discovered he had a big voice, which is necessary in acting. Evans said he found something that was fun, and that he could do well.

“Two reasons I got into drama. It was fun, and the girl-to-guy ratio was definitely in my favor,” he said.

After graduating from CMR in 1983, Evans said he knew drama was something he wanted to continue learning, and maybe even teach. In a summer theatre program in Great Falls, Evans met his wife, Lesli, and continued his journey in the drama curriculum.  Eventually, he returned to CMR in the fall of 2010 to teach the drama and stagecraft classes. The classes are meant to contain creativity and fun, also with skills that students can take from the class to use later in life. The reason Evans teaches drama to his students is for the ability to express an opinion or feeling, he said.

Evans said there is a goal that he wants accomplished by the end of the year. He aims to take two words –“I can’t” –from the vocabulary of his students.

“I see everybody has some sort of bravery,” Evans said.

Evans said the hardest part of teaching drama is seeing different personalities and attitudes that reflect the way students act and participate. However, drama is not just a learning experience for students, but for him also.

“There’s a lot more to learn, and I’m ready to.”