“My family didn’t have the money to send me to college,” Clark recalls. “F&M gave me a full scholarship, and that started my love affair with Franklin & Marshall College.”
Clark, a member of the William A. Schnader Society and a loyal supporter of the Franklin & Marshall Fund, recently made Franklin & Marshall College a beneficiary of his IRA.
“The scholarship I received was very important to me,” Clark says. “I always said I’d like to give back in a more substantial way, when I could, to support students who need financial aid. This is a great way to do that!”
Clark grew up north of Baltimore and chose F&M over the University of Maryland—partly because of the financial aid he was offered, partly because it was small and he knew it would be a good fit. He was a math major, a photographer for The College Reporter, and a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. He remembers the valuable academic challenges he and the other students faced.
“I thought I was smarter than I was,” he says. “That first year was really tough. Freshman English was so hard! But I learned to study and to absorb as much information as I could, and it paid off; I received very high scores on the medical school exam and was able to attend George Washington University Medical School.”
After a career in anesthesiology that included time with the U.S. Public Health Service, a year at Shiprock, on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico, a Boston residency and work at Massachusetts General Hospital, he and his first wife settled in Connecticut. The years brought a second wife, two children, and two stepchildren. Clark is now retired, but he is active and enjoys traveling. And he still loves F&M.
“I give because I love the school; that’s the bottom line,” he says. “I’m looking forward to my 50th reunion, and I can’t wait to see everyone.”
To learn how to craft your own legacy at F&M, or for more information about making a tax-free gift using your IRA, contact Mary Ann M. Cooke, J.D., '90, at mcooke@fandm.edu or 717-358-4821.