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Page 3, March 20,1980
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Custodian moonlights as student
by KATHLEEN
Mcelroy
Battalion Staff
You’ll find Johnnie Clark in the
Kleberg Center at night. A pleasant
conversation starts, and she might
ask if you are in college. With a little
scorn in your voice, you reply yes.
Then she’ll proudly say that she
too is a student.
A slight shock — Clark, who
looks sixty-ish, doesn’t resemble
your average college student. Un
like most of the students, she isn’t in
Kleberg to study — Monday
through Friday nights, she is a cus
todial worker there.
But every weekend, when most
students are trying to forget about
school and studying, she catches a
bus in her hometown of Hearne for
a 90-minute drive to attend the
Prairie View A&M University
weekend college where she is a
business administration major.
And her college career isn’t the
only phase of her that makes her
remarkable — she is a hard worker,
civic leader, and feminist all in one
small, but sturdy frame.
Clark was born in Temple — she
won’t tell how many years ago —
and reared in Sapulpa, Okla., gra
duating from the local high school
there in 1938, the tension years be
fore World War II.
Some time after high school she
met the man she said she couldn’t
have done anything without, a Tex
an named John Henry Clark who is
now her husband of 25 years.
Clark isn’t the type to stay at
home, while her husband is out
working: "He says I was the worst
woman’s libber he was ever in con
tact with.
“We have worked together in va
rious towns — in Lubbock, Fort
Worth and finally Hearne,” she
said. “All this time I didn’t have an
opportunity for college.”
But she did have time for every
thing else. She has been teaching
intermediate Sunday School at her
church in Hearne, while at the same
time taking part in the small, but
active chapter of the NAACP in
town.
And what sounds like service
above and beyond the proverbial
call of duty, Mrs. Clark is a pillar in
the parent-teacher associations in
Hearne — even though she and her
husband have never had any chil
dren.
“I was past president of Black-
shire Elementary for three years be
fore integration,” she says proudly.
“After (integration), vice-
president.”
But still there was no time for col
lege —that is, until a former Hearne
resident, now a Prarie View A&M
administrator, decided college
shouldn’t just be for those who have
the weekdays to spare.
“Dr. Wayman Webster thought
his people needed to be upgraded,”
Clark said. “So he started the
weekend college.”
The program Webster started
provides free transportation to
Prairie View and government
grants for the education.
Clark, who heard about the prog
ram through her church pastor, has
nothing but praise for the program.
“It is so excellent — it’s doing a
beautiful job,” she said. “These are
parents who have raised their chil
dren, but still want the chance to get
a college education.”
So at 6:15 each Saturday morn
ing, when of most of us are in heavy
sleep, Clark boards the over
crowded bus in front of the old
Blackshire Elementary building
(which was renamed Northside af
ter integration), and rides to other
towns in the Brazos Valley —
Cameron, Navasota, Bryan — pick
ing up adults like herself who have
decided that now is as good a time
as ever to continue their education.
Classes start at 8:15 sharp. Clark
is a sophomore — “It’s a boring
year” — and takes finance, human
relations, management, and
another business elective.
At 4:15, when classes are
finished, everyone boards the bus
to return home. Clark gets back to
Hearne around 6:30 that night.
Just because they attend college
only on the weekend doesn't make
Clark and her schoolmates any less
than typical college students. She
says she spends hours studying in
the library — Texas A&M’s and
Prarie View A&M’s — just like any
other student.
“We travel together, and usually
do homework together,” said Clark,
who has a B-average. “I feel like a
full-time student even though I do it
only on weekends.”
“I should graduate within the next
two years,” she continued, adding
she’s looking at ways to hurry up
and get her degree. “If I go this sum
mer and next, it’ll shorten the time.”
We’ve all been told a college
education is a good thing to have,
but why does Johnnie Clark—after
so many years without one — want
a degree?
“I don’t care whether I have a
high paying job when I get out, and I
won’t flaunt my degree at my neigh
bors,” she said. “I’m not looking to
beat anybody out of a job.”
“I want the world to know this is
what I worked for—this proves you
can still do it, in spite of your age. I
don’t feel like I’m slowing down at
all.”
She doesn’t mind being among
the Texas A&M students, or that
she is usually the oldest person on
the bus to school.
“You young people have made
me feel so good. I look at you and I
know how to fix my hair and
makeup.”
And in a couple of more years,
with her husband by her side, she
will proudly claim a degree in Busi
ness Administration, a degree she
will have waited almost 40 years to
get.
But somehow, one gets the feel
ing every second in those years
were well-spent.