Michael Henry Clark

Funeral services for Michael Henry Clark, 89, will be at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 10 in Santa Fe National Cemetery with military honors. His nephew Terry M. Clark will officiate.

 A long-time teacher at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, he died Oct. 24 in a Colorado veterans home at Walsenburg. Well-known in many of the pueblos of New Mexico, he lived in Santa Fe until November last year when age forced his move.

A world traveler, he was born in Comanche, OK, Sept. 4, 1922. He was the fourth of five sons of Erle T. and Cuba Jon Miller Clark of Comanche.

Before joining the U.S. Navy in WWII, he ran away from home with friends hoping to get a job in Washington, D.C. and Richmond during the Depression. In the War he served as a signalman, Petty Officer second class on PC1212 on anti-submarine patrol in the Caribbean.

After the war he earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English and history from the University of Colorado. Reactivated during the Korean War, he served on LST 975 that was in the first invasion wave of landings on the beach at Inchon. He was transferred to Gen. MacArthur’s flagship, the USS Mt. McKinley, as the “best signalman in the Navy.”

He later taught high school English, history and other subjects at Espanola. He also taught at Casper, Wyo., and in Oregon. He was hired by the U.S. Information Agency to teach English to university students for five straight years in Ecuador, Libya, Iran and Mali.

He returned to the U.S. as a teacher of many subjects at the Institute of America Indian Arts in 1965. He was a member of the Santa Fe VFW and American Legion. and served in the Oklahoma National Guard as a youth.

He was preceded in death by his parents and four brothers—Terrence Miller, Lewis Watts, Rex Thweatt and Champ.  He is survived by many nieces and nephews. Rogers Funeral Home at Alamosa is handling arrangements.