Goodbye, Dr Clark

Lexington Herald-Leader 06/29/2005 Now a part of history

Thomas Dionysius Clark, our historian laureate, was a native of Mississippi, but early on in his professional life he came to Kentucky and truly adopted it as home, becoming an expert in Kentucky history and building the department that I was priveleged to study in during my career at the University of Kentucky. He had already retired from the university before I became a history student, but his presence lingered in many ways.

I met Dr Clark once after being selected as an intern at the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives the summer between my history studies and before I started library school. He was an engaging man with, very personable and very gracious, with an excellent sense of humour, surprising in a man whom I had always heard negotiated through the bureaucracy of academia like a force of nature.

His enthusiasm and ability to secure support lies behind so much in terms of state history and the documents that portray it. He was an importance force behind the state historical society's history centre whose name is changing in his honour, the Lexington History Museum, the state archives, and the library at the University of Kentucky, among others. He inspired others to take up the reins so that these institutions may continue to flourish. He was interested in preserving history, culture, and the very environment of the state, yet was progressive in his thought and insisted that the South could ill afford to live in the past in an ever-changing world. He was a remarkable man, and in so many areas of the state, his presence will linger and yet the loss will be felt.