Necrology

Gary Carlton Clark '70

Jan. 10, 1949-Jul. 26, 2021

Gary Carlton Clark ’70 died on July 26, 2021, in West Hartford, Conn. Born on Jan. 10, 1949, in Utica and raised in New Hartford, N.Y., he came to Hamilton from New Hartford High School. On the Hill, he majored in government and was a member of Delta Upsilon fraternity, serving as house manager for a time. He went out for the football team as a freshman but broke a leg during practice and was never able to play again. As the story goes, Gary was gifted with almost total recall, enabling him to prepare successfully for exams by studying the night before even as his friends sweated it out for days.

Though he did not play the sport, Gary had an intense love of hockey that would eventually shape the course of his career. From Hamilton, he initially went to Albany Law School but, finding the field not to his liking, withdrew and took a job teaching near Clinton at Brookfield (N.Y.) Central School. He also coached its freshman basketball team. 

Thereafter, Gary entered the world of professional ice hockey. He began by taking charge of public relations for the Mohawk Valley Comets, the successor to the Clinton Comets, based in Utica and a member of the North American Hockey League. From there he moved to Hartford, Conn., to work for the New England Whalers, then part of the World Hockey Association. Renamed the Hartford Whalers, the team joined the National Hockey League in 1979. Gary stayed with the Whalers until they relocated in 1997 to Raleigh, N.C., but he continued to live in Connecticut, dividing his time between West Hartford and Old Saybrook.

With his partner, Laura N. Zase, Gary subsequently began collecting and selling American Flyer model trains. The project took them all over the country, and they were recognized for their knowledge and judgment of train quality.

A devotee of The New York Times crossword puzzles (he reportedly used a pen to complete them), Gary was also a Yankees fan and a record collector.

As a classmate and fraternity brother recalled, “Gary was a true friend who would do almost anything we asked him — always attentive, always concerned, always knowledgeable, always happy and positive.” Late in life, even as he was being overwhelmed by Parkinson’s disease, when a visitor would ask how he was, Gary’s response was inevitably a variation of: “Forget about me; how are you doing?” 

Gary C. Clark was predeceased by his father, Herbert C. Clark ’35, and is survived by his partner.

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