ENHS Nature Trails September 2005 Article 2

President's Message

REMEMBERING ROBERT CLARK

A glimpse of a great man from our ENHS President, David Wagner

This past summer the Eugene Natural History Society lost one of its most ardent members, Dr. Robert D. Clark, who died at the age of 95 near the end of June. The obituaries all listed the ENHS as one of the organizations to which he belonged. He attended our meetings regularly; he was at our last meeting in May. We are going to miss him.

Bob Clark had retired as President of the University of Oregon the year before I came to Eugene to become the curator of the University herbarium. We soon met because his interest in natural history was profound, especially botany. When I began my seventeen year run of spring plant walks in 1977, Dr. Clark promptly began attending. I pulled out a newspaper clipping from 1991 that discussed our proposal for a nature sanctuary in Alton Baker Park. It featured a picture of one of these walks, with nine or ten people on a cold spring day, under hazelnut trees that had yet to leaf out. There, in his characteristic cap, is Bob Clark among the other participants on the plant walk. He was one of the regulars.

I was so pleased that someone of his stature had such an earnest interest in botany and took such great pleasure in the plant walks. He was a great scholar and a great administrator who enjoyed being a humble, amateur naturalist. He would tell me how much he missed the walks when other matters kept him from attending. He often mentioned that he regretted that his age prevented him from participating in the ivy pulls the ENHS organized in Alton Baker Park. He had always been a supporter of the Native Plant Society as well as the Eugene Natural History Society. He took a keen interest in the botany of the Lewis and Clark expedition and wrote several pieces on plants they discovered.

The fallout from Measure 5, the infamous tax limitation initiative that brought ruin to Oregon's educational programs, led the University of Oregon to close its herbarium and turn the former curator out onto the street. Bob Clark was one of my most sympathetic supporters. Many times he told me that if he were still President of the University he would never have allowed the herbarium to be lost. His heartfelt condolences went a long way to keeping my spirits up as I switched from being an academic to a private consulting botanist.

It reminded me of his earlier support for efforts on behalf of the Museum of Natural History. Among my memorabilia are tickets from 1982 to a "lecture-discussion"--my euphemism for a debate--that was called "100 Years After Darwin: Why Darwinism?" I had set this up, inviting a creationist from George Fox College to challenge me. The University was going through hard times and I thought we could raise money by charging money for an event on a controversial subject. Giving respectability to the event, Bob Clark graciously agreed to be the moderator. He seemed to really enjoy the enterprise even though we raised only a few hundred dollars.

Dr. Clark struck me as a quintessential member of our organization: not a scientist, yet a lover of nature who was ever keen on learning about the natural world.

David Wagner

Even if you didn't know him, you will find the pictures and information about this compassionate and often outspoken man, to be quite interesting.

http://robertdclark.uoregon.edu/

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