Named by the senior class as most likely to own a Fortune 500 company and also most likely to become president, Clark Durham ’12 has always displayed his leadership and management skills at Jesuit.
While some may see him as rigid and exacting, others see him as determined and hard-working. And it was his determination and effort that earned him the role as editor-in-chief of The Roundup for the 2011-2012 school year.
A diligent writer, Clark published over 40 articles during his two years as a journalist on The Roundup. “I wrote pretty much two to three times a month and really just put out as much content as possible,” explained Clark.
Clark’s pursuit of the editor-in-chief position arose when he began running the newspaper meetings after school during his junior year. “He just naturally rose to the occasion when the paper needed a strong student leader to help build the paper last year,” noted Ms Sheryl Row, one of the three moderators of The Roundup who started Jesuit’s first online The Roundup.
“[Clark] has been a great leader, because I think he has not only encouraged a number of others to begin writing for the paper, but has also stayed on those students, keeping them going,” said Row. “He has a strong sense of what each newspaper writer would be good at covering.”
Clark characterized his pursuit of the editor-in-chief position as a “body of work sort of thing,” drawing on the importance of doing all that he could to impress Dr. Michael Degen and the rest of The Roundup moderators and staff. He even decided to quit football his junior year to establish a stronger commitment to the paper.
“I had a lot of big ideas,” Clark remembers, “some of which came to fruition, and from there I think I showed Dr. Degen that I really wanted” the editor position.
Clark generated many of his ideas when he attended the University Interscholastic League’s summer writing workshop on the University of Texas at Austin campus, an event that no other Jesuit writer had ever done.
“When he went to that camp,” Dr. Degen asserted, “he began to develop his own aesthetic and content goals for our newspaper.”
One such idea Clark had was holding news conferences with Principal Tom Garrison to receive the latest updates on school renovations and other changes. Thanks to Clark’s thoughtful insight, these conferences proved to be very stimulating, as Mr. Garrison would reveal information to The Roundup staff that had not previously been divulged to the student body.
Clark’s idea of holding news conferences provided a new way for the paper to stay on top of exciting news in the school, such as the introduction of iPads in the coming school year.
Mr. Garrison even noticed Clark’s expertise in journalism, noting, “I have watched the way he runs [the news conferences] and it looks to me like his staff respects him. He will point to people and ask, ‘Do you have a question?’ or he will say, ‘Hold on, we’re going to get to someone else.’ That’s a people skill that not everybody has.”
Clark, unlike most staff of The Roundup, writes not only about school news and sports but also publishes his own editorials.
Mrs. Row identified Clark, when he first joined The Roundup, as a “fiery, opinionated person politically, but also a very thoughtful person who did his homework, so I found his pieces to be interesting.”
“Clark seemed to be able to really focus on issues that were mission-driven for the school, which was certainly a blessing for us,” said President Michael Earsing. “The issues were not bland and they showed some sensational writing.”
Indeed, Clark, in his two jam-packed years of writing for The Roundup, has kept Jesuit’s mission in mind. According to Mr. Earsing, “Clark has been able to understand our mission’s importance, and when he did his work, it was generated out of fulfilling the mission of the school, and it is really exceptional for a journalist to be able to lead in that direction.”
From running almost every single editors’ meeting on Mondays during sixth period to managing practically every staff meeting on Tuesdays after school, Clark has strived to improve the journalism skills of every Roundup member.
“Clark really is the one who helped get the paper off the ground,” believes Ms. Row. “Two years ago when we first started he probably just saw himself as a writer, but Dr. Degen, Fritz Asche, and I quickly saw that this student had a lot of talent, and he had the skills to bring the newspaper a very long way.”
But one of the biggest ways Clark mentored another student in writing was when he accompanied Dr. Degen, Ms. Row, Mr. Asche, and Payton Maher ’13 to St. Louis, to interview the first African-American student to graduate from Jesuit, Charles Edmond ’58. Offering Payton advice on how to write his series, Clark truly demonstrated what an editor-in-chief should do.
One of Clark’s last assignments is a great example of his expertise as an editor-in-chief. Recognizing The Roundup’s exceptional writing, the alumni office asked the paper to write the Sports Hall of Fame profiles for their banquet brochure. Each writer interviewed several people, including the winners, in order to write the 9 articles. Clark spent days organizing the project, keeping each writer on track and poring over the pieces to ensure they were the best they could be.
“Clark really did a great job just making sure we got all of [the articles] in, since there were 9 pieces,” said Dr. Degen.
Next semester, Clark will be attending the University of Virginia, “one of the best schools in the country,” according to Degen. He still plans on pursuing journalism by writing for The Cavalier Daily, the university’s online newspaper.
Recognizing the University of Virginia as “one of the best schools in the country,” Dr. Degen added, “It’s pretty impressive that [Clark] got in, but he is a National Merit finalist, so he had the credentials.”
As Mr. Earsing, Mr. Garrison, and The Roundup staff would all agree, Clark, during his years at Jesuit, has been a man who understands Jesuit’s values and has made every second of his experiences with The Roundup count.
The Roundup during the 2012-2013 school year will certainly be different without the leadership of Clark Durham, but his ideas and standards for writing will be remembered and passed down by future editors-in-chief.
The entire Roundup staff would like to thank you, Clark, for all the work you put in to not only helping writers find their individual talents but also for transforming The Roundup into a significant part
