Walton College Alumnus Supports Need-Based Scholarships

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Gary Clark

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Gary Clark (B.S.B.A., 1985) of Houston believes contributing to higher education is a great investment in people, and he wants to provide opportunities for people to get on the path to a better life. Thus, he and his wife, Melissa, have given $100,000 to establish two need-based scholarship endowments in support of University of Arkansas students in the Sam M. Walton College of Business and the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences.

Both scholarships were created within the Access Arkansas program, which aims to raise money for need-based scholarships, particularly for undergraduate students.

The University of Arkansas is the source of great memories for the Clarks, so giving back seemed natural.

“My best college memory has to be meeting my wife on a blind date late in my senior year,” said Gary Clark. “She was visiting a friend who was dating my roommate. Twenty-three years and three kids later, that would have to be number one.”

During his freshman year, the first football game was against Texas. While “Texas Week” was something unimaginable to Clark, so were the 95-plus-degree temperatures.

“I lived in un-air-conditioned Gregson,” he recalled. “Everyone on my floor thought I was really studious because I was always over in the library. I was actually escaping the heat in its air-conditioned confines.”

The scholarship endowed in the Bumpers College was done to honor Howard Young, Melissa Clark’s father and a Bumpers College alumnus. Young worked for many years in the Arkansas Extension Service. As a member of Arkansas’ Agriculture Hall of Fame, Young has spent his life helping families understand the benefits of adapting and learning as new technology or techniques related to agriculture become available.

Young was moved by the gesture — presented as a Christmas gift, in fact — of his daughter and son-in-law to create the Howard S. and Inez M. Young Access Arkansas Scholarship. The Walton College endowment was named the Gary and Melissa Clark Access Arkansas Scholarship.

“My wife, Inez, and I have always supported education,” said Young. “Our four daughters and their husbands all have college degrees. Five of our grandchildren have completed college, and we are certain the four younger grandchildren will also finish college. Five college scholarships have been named in our honor, and we are thrilled about the one Melissa and Gary are naming for us in the Bumpers College.”

Gary Clark grew up in Buffalo Grove, Ill., and he came to the University of Arkansas because of the small class sizes, economical tuition and small campus feel. He studied data processing and quantitative analysis, and his class was the first to work on personal computers. As graduation neared, he asked one professor for help in finding a job. Rheem Manufacturing in Fort Smith was discussed, and Clark contacted them and was offered a job as a market research analyst. He has been in the air-conditioning and heating business his entire career, and now holds the title of senior vice president of marketing for Goodman Manufacturing in Houston, Texas.

Clark also holds a master of business administration from the University of Notre Dame. The couple’s children, Lauren, Maddie and Emily, are 20, 16 and 13 years old, respectively. The Clarks were inducted into the University of Arkansas Towers of Old Main giving society last month.