Jack Norman Clark

Jack Norman Clark, 87, longtime resident of the City of Oak Grove in Kaufman County, Texas, died on February 6, 2012. Jack was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on August 28, 1924, to Thomas Clark and Loudon McCree Clark and raised in Frankston, Texas. He has lived in the Kaufman, Texas area since 1970. Jack graduated Salutatorian from Frankston High School at age 16. He was 17 when Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan. He enlisted and served in the Army and the Air Corp (the Air Force), became a navigator and bombardier and rose to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. Following the war, Jack graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with business and law degrees. After graduation from law school, Jack began his career as an oil and gas landman in the Corpus Christi, Texas, office of Atlantic Refining Company. During his 33 year career with this same company, he lived in Shawnee, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Dallas, Texas, Tyler, Texas, Richardson, Texas, Kaufman, Texas and Oak Grove, Texas. He worked on energy plays all over the world, from the Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska to geothermal energy in Hawaii to offshore leases in the Gulf of Mexico. When he retired in 1984 his company had grown into one of the largest energy companies in the world, ARCO Oil and Gas Company. Jack sacrificially devoted his life to his family and community. While living in Tyler, he taught youth Sunday School at Marvin United Methodist Church. He also was the President of the Tyler Chapter of Toastmasters International. While living in the Kaufman, Texas, area for the past 42 years, Jack remained a member of the First United Methodist Church in Kaufman, Texas, where he taught Sunday School and his wife of 55 years, Marilyn Jane Hunt Clark, was the organist. Jack was an avid reader and student all of his life. His favorite areas of interest were history, geography and astronomy. He rarely missed morning coffee with the guys at the local café, and enjoyed following his favorite sports teams, politics and other news of the day. Jack was a people person and never met a stranger. He was quite a personality and well-liked, and will be missed by family and many friends. Jack married Marilyn in Corpus Christi on September 29, 1956. In addition to Marilyn, Jack is survived by his son, Charles Thomas Clark and his wife, Edna Edith Gonzalez Clark, of Plano and Tool, Texas; daughters Carol Denise Clark Hendrick and her husband, Keith David Hendrick, of Houston, Texas, and Jacqueline Ann Clark Morris of Waco, Texas; and nine grandchildren, Charles Andrew (Drew) Clark, Allison Jane Clark, Devan Alan Clark, Matthew Thomas Clark, Ryan Clark Hendrick, Jennifer Blair Hendrick, Kyle David Hendrick, Marilyn Ann Morris and Hunter Ian Morris.