Margaret Clark This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. Margaret Clark this year’s distinguished alumna

   www.brownsvilleherald.com/sect - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/6/2001   Last Visited: 8/7/2001

   Margaret Clark this year's distinguished alumna
   
   Monday , August 06 , 2001
   
   Margaret Clark this year's distinguished alumna.
   
   ...
   Margaret Clark received two more honors last week.
   
   She was named the 2001 Distinguished Alumna of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College and was the commencement speaker for the Class of 2001.
   
   Clark , 90 , was recently inducted into the Rio Grande Valley Sports Hall of Fame. She has received many other awards in the course of an active life of teaching and volunteering.
   
   In 1981 , the year that she retired from teaching in the Brownsville Independent School District , she was recognized for contributions to the development of elementary physical education in Texas.
   
   In 1982 , she was honored by the national American Red Cross for 6 , 000 hours of volunteer service.
   
   And at a school board meeting last year , her name was adopted unanimously for BISD's new aquatic center. The facility is due to be completed in early summer.
   
   But Clark seems vaguely uncomfortable with so much publicity.
   
   She takes the most satisfaction from an accomplishment that can only be guessed at - from the lives saved that would have been lost in a resaca or swimming pool if she had not taught the swimmers drown-proofing.
   
   Clark has taught some 6 , 000 Brownsville children how to swim.
   
   She's an icon , said BISD board member Herman Otis Powers Jr. , who learned to swim from Clark.
   ...
   Today , when grown men reminisce about Clark , they invariably mention getting their tadpole.
   
   Clark was born in New Orleans in 1910 and moved to Brownsville around the age of 5. After attending the University of Texas and graduating from Texas Woman's University with a degree in physical education , she started teaching in the BISD in 1931.
   
   There were lots of sports opportunities for boys but not many for girls , she said.
   
   Clark organized a drum and bugle corps for girls at Brownsville High School in 1937. In the 1950s , she helped bring Girl Scouting to Brownsville. In 1964 , she was instrumental in starting girls track in BISD , helping organize the first Sams Girls' Relays. The same year she started the Eaglettes , a high school girls' drill team.
   
   For several years , Clark taught outside of the Brownsville school district. She took education courses at TSC and taught physical education there for a year. And for six years , she was principal of Episcopal Day School.
   
   But from 1974 until her retirement , Clark served as BISD's elementary physical education coordinator. She introduced square dancing , bowling and other activities that students could practice throughout their lives.
   
   She was not deterred by lack of training or lack of resources.
   
   When she decided students should learn to bowl , she taught herself the sport by reading a book and studying a film made by a bowling ball manufacturer.
   
   Then she got some used pins from a bowling alley , set them up in Sams Stadium and had students bowl with old softballs.
   
   Likewise , when she decided that handicapped students at Lincoln Park School should have an adapted aquatics program , she created it , getting training for herself and the volunteers she recruited to work one-to-one with each student.
   
   ...
   In 1975 , Clark presented a plan to BISD's superintendent , complete with bus routes , for teaching all Brownsville third-graders how to swim.
   
   She was told , Mrs. Clark , we can't do this..
   
   With the completion of the Margaret M. Clark Aquatic Center , however , Clark's plan will become a reality.
   
   And that may be the greatest honor of all.
   
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