MARK AND BECKY ALLISON

The 2020 Evolve Gala Chairs for Centers for Youth and Families

Mark and Becky Allison are thrilled to serve as co-chairs of the 2020 Evolve Gala, "Sing!" We selected this theme because music is the background of so much in our lives - our families, our faith, the merger of two fine record collections (circa 1978). Becky and Mark met at a theatre cast party at OBU and were married in 1978. When they got married, the only two albums they owned in common were The Captain and Tennille, and the Led Zeppelin ZOSO album.  Go figure.  They still have those albums.

The Gala is a celebration of the lives being changed at the Centers for Youth and Families. It's part pep rally, part revival meeting. So support our guest vocalists and make a joyful noise yourself!

Mark has served on the board for Centers since 2009. He is a partner at Dover Dixon Horne PLLC. The son of career foreign missionaries, Mark was born in El Dorado and spent much of his childhood in Kenya, graduating from Rift Valley Academy in Kijabe.

One sad day he had to leave his electric guitar behind as the family packed the crate to return to the states. He's a decent musician, but Mark found his niche running sound for and recording other performers. He has degrees in history from Ouachita Baptist University, Arkansas State University, and a law degree from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Becky was born in St. Louis, Missouri and was raised in Thayer, Mo.  Becky's father was an insurance agent in Thayer and performed for many years in the Arkansas Traveller Folk Theater in Hardy, along with the rest of her family.  Her mother was a school teacher in the Thayer Public Schools. Becky comes from a lineage of southern Missouri country and gospel singers and thought she was a pretty good vocalist until she moved to Arkansas, where apparently EVERYONE can sing. So she graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia and worked instead in newsrooms at KLAZ Radio in Little Rock, and KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, and last fall retired from the state Department of Environmental Quality.