MAGNA — Carl Donald Clark, 85, former Magna dentist and community leader, died Friday, May 30, 2003, of cancer.
Dr. Clark practiced dentistry in Magna for 42 years. He valued service and charity more than wealth and commonly saw patients who had no way to pay for the care they received.
His community activities included: president of the Old Time Athletes Association; 25 years on the City-County Board of Health; president of the Magna Mosquito Abatement and Utah Mosquito Abatement associations; and a former member of the Magna Chamber of Commerce and Magna Community Council.
He was also honored recently as one of 10 Emeriti Alumni at Brigham Young University. While at BYU, he was a nationally ranked pole vaulter. He was inducted in the Utah Sports Hall of Fame in 1983 for pole vaulting.
Upon graduation from BYU in 1940, he moved to Heber City, where he taught English at Wasatch High School.
Soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for the Army Air Corps, where he served from 1942-45. He was a B-17 pilot instructor at Lockbourne Army Air Base in Columbus, Ohio, and became commander of a B-29 just before the end of the war. He took advantage of the GI Bill by attending Northwestern University Dental School in Chicago, Ill.
After retiring from his dental career, he donated much of his time to the Senior Citizen Center in Magna, where the town dedicated a small park, the Dr. Carl D. Clark Magna Senior Citizens Park, in his honor.
He and his wife, Hope, were active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had served a double shift each Tuesday at the Jordan River Temple for the past six years.
Funeral services will be Wednesday, June 4, at noon at the Magna Spencer 2nd/4th/6th Ward chapel, 8181 W. Breeze Drive (3320 South). Friends may call at the Peel Funeral Home, 8525 S. 2700 South, Magna, on Tuesday, June 3, from 6-8 p.m., or from 10-11:45 a.m. on Wednesday at the chapel prior to the services. Burial will be in Valley View Memorial Park.