Gregory Alden Clarke of Clearfield has announced his candidacy for a four-year term of school director to the Clearfield Area School Board.
Clarke has cross-filed as both a Democratic and a Republican candidate. His name will appear as number one on the Democratic ballot and number three on the Republican ballot.
Clark’s wife, the late Martha Frantz Clarke, graduated from Clearfield High School, as did their three children, Joshua, Christopher and Rachel.
Both Clarke and his late wife, Marty, have teaching experience. She retired after more than 35 years as an elementary school sixth-grade math teacher for Clearfield.
Clarke graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia and earned a certification in elementary education from Clarion University.
He was the seventh-grade teacher at St. Francis School in Clearfield for four years and, while there, coached baseball and basketball.
He was a substitute elementary teacher for several local school districts, including Clearfield, and was a graduate teaching assistant for the education department while studying at Clarion.
In addition to his experience in education, Clarke was engaged in business. His career began as an employee for Allstate Insurance Company, working in the office located at that time in the Clearfield Sears store.
At the time of his retirement in 2006, Clarke was the owner of his own agency office on Locust Street in Clearfield.
Clarke said the driving force of his candidacy is the overwhelming knowledge that Clearfield and the six nearby school districts graduate about 1,000 students each and every year. He said the area does not have 1,000 financial or job opportunities every year.
Some of these graduates go to the military service. Some go to specific job schooling, such as carpentry, masonry, medical technology, etc. Some go to a two- or four-year college.
All the rest of the 1,000 go to looking for a job here at home, and they don’t find one here. Clarke said that there aren’t jobs for them here because it is not a growing economy.
“We love and nurture our children their whole lives and then we must send them away from us to give them an opportunity at a better future,” Clarke said.
“As parents, as a community, the most we can do is to provide our children with the very best education we can. So they can compete successfully out there, wherever it is they go.”
Clarke added, “My desire as a Clearfield Area School District director is to work with administrators, teachers and board members to help all our parents equip our children with the only tool we have to give them.”
