Larry D. Clark

Larry D. Clark spent forty-six years teaching high school English at three different schools. He spent one year at Connell High School in Connell, Washington, the farming community where his wife grew up. For the next thirty years, 1968-1998, Larry taught English at A.C. Davis High School in Yakima, Washington, the school from which Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas graduated. He continued his high school English-teaching career in 1998 as a founding faculty member of La Salle High School in Union Gap, Washington. When his first grandson Jaxon was born in 2006, he and his wife moved to Richland, Washington, and he taught English, Psychology of Self-development and Native American History at New Horizons High School, an alternative school in Pasco, Washington. He retired from teaching after forty-six years, a battle with cancer finally chasing him out the door. Otherwise, he would still be teaching.

Throughout his forty-six-year teaching career, Larry practiced what he preached to his students. He found time between grading thousands of student essays to write six novels. He published his first novel, Four Days of Silence, in 2006. In 2010 he published novel number two, Will the Real Jeff Creek. He completed his trilogy, If Not This Dream, in 2013, a project he started in 1967 while working twelve-hour shifts running a grain elevator in the isolated hills a few miles from Connell, Washington. It took him two years to complete a handwritten draft of this novel. He piddled with it throughout the years, becoming serious about finishing it after publishing Will the Real Jeff Creek. The story morphed into a three-book project.

Larry has also published two poetry books, Another Time Long Ago, a collection of the author’s reflections on what he fondly calls “nature and love and stuff.” The second collection of poems, Beyond the Wrath: Recollections of My Father for My Sons, recalls memories of his father, who died at age thirty-seven when Larry was a sophomore at Toppenish High School in Toppenish, Washington.

If all of this didn't keep Larry busy enough, he spent over thirty-five years coaching basketball, fifteen at the high school boys' varsity level. He coached twenty-three years at A. C. Davis High School in Yakima, Washington, leading his 1998 team to the state tournament. After "retiring" from public school after thirty-one years, he became a founding faculty member and boys’ basketball coach at a new Catholic high school in Union Gap, Washington, La Salle High School. Two of his seven teams, 2002 and 2003, reached the state tournament. He transformed his coaching career by coaching a seventh grade girls' A.A.U. team, Tri-Cities Extreme, for one year, finishing with a record of 56-9. He finished up coaching his two granddaughters, Jordyn and Jayda Clark, on their A.A.U. teams, finally turning these duties over to his son Jay Clark when the cancer demanded too much of his time and energy.

If time permits, Larry has two more novels outlined and ready to begin, Blue Crystal and Street Cleaners. He continues his seven-year battle with cancer, supported by his beautiful wife of fifty-three years, Pamela Ann Clark. His two sons, Jeff and Jay, two daughters-in-law, Leah and Jennifer and six grandchildren, Maddison, McKayla, Maudie, Jordyn, Jayda and Jaxon also help him with this fight.