Randolph Lee Clark, son of Randolph Clark and Ella Blanche (Lee) Clark, was born on June 5, 1871, in Fort Worth. He grew up in a family which stressed education. His father and Uncle Addison Clark were founders of Add-Ran College at Thorp Spring, which was the forerunner of Texas Christian University.

As a young man, Lee Clark was a part-time cowboy for the XIT Ranch. In fact, after he received his B. A. degree from Add-Ran Christian in 1895, he rode a cattle train to the Chicago stockyards where he sold some cattle to finance one year's study at the University of Chicago. There he studied under the personal influence of William Rainey Harper, president of the University and "father of the American junior college movement."

After returning to Texas, Clark married Leni Leoti Sypert. In 1899, he was ordained a minister in the Disciples of Christ Church, although he never accepted a church assignment. From 1911-1914, he was a state employee in Austin, working as a general agent for the State Conference of Education. While in Austin, he served on the Board of Examiners of Normal Colleges (teacher colleges) and also promoted educational reforms at the public secondary and elementary school levels.

After serving one year as financial agent and dean of Midland Junior College, an affiliate of the Disciples of Christ Church, he moved to Wichita Falls where he held his longest tenure of public school superintendent from 1915-1923.

After a personal campaign, of five years, Clark was successful in adding a junior college to the rapidly growing public school system. The University Club aided Clark in his Junior college movement. As a method of promoting a college, graduating Wichita Falls seniors of the class of 1921 were given questionnaires concerning future plans with attending junior college as an option.

On June 24, 1922, the voters of Wichita Falls overwhelmingly approved an $850,000 school bond package which included approximately $550,000 for a new high school- junior college building.

The new junior college, one of the earliest public Junior colleges in the state, opened in September, 1922, with a student body of 55, ten teachers, and a curriculum of seven subjects. On April 24, 1923, United States District Judge William H. Atwell spoke to a crowd of 2,000 who witnessed the laying of the marble cornerstone of the three-story high school-junior college building.

Lee Clark Comes To Gainesville

At the end of the 1922-23 academic year, Lee Clark moved to Gainesville to become its school superintendent. The time was ripe for the creation of another junior college. Dr. C. R. Johnson, founder of the Gainesville Kiwanis Club and Lieutenant-Governor of the Texas-Oklahoma District, harshly criticized the Kiwanis Club because of twenty-two delinquent dues payers and the unprogressive spirit of Gainesville. In conclusion, he declared: "Only a few days ago, Lubbock raised $80,000 in one day's time to purchase a site for the state technological school. . . while At a November 15, 1923, meeting of the Kiwanis Club, Lee Clark, who had just started his first term as superintendent, publicly planted the seed for a new junior college as a guest speaker. He cited numerous advantages in grafting on a junior college to the Gainesville school system: Too many freshmen failed at the University of Texas; college students who would spend at least $600 a year away from home could save money staying home going to college and help the local economy; possibly fifty of approximately seventy-five graduating seniors would attend the local college; the college would function easily enough in the newly remodeled Newsome Dougherty High School- formerly the W. H. Dougherty mansion and previously the home of United States Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey--with the addition of several teachers and improvements in lab equipment. (With nine children of his own to educate, one might say Lee Clark had a vested interest in promoting junior colleges. All of his children went to college.)

The bandwagon for a junior college really took off in the spring of 1924. Judge W. E. Murphy, president of the Gainesville School Board, promoted the junior college project at the April the third meeting of the Kiwanis Club. The club unanimously passed a resolution introduced by Dr. Johnson and endorsed by the Kiwanis Board of Directors in support of the college.

On April 19, the Gainesville Parent-Teacher Association and other civic clubs held a joint meeting to trumpet the cause. The end result of that meeting in which Lee Clark repeated his usual arguments for a college was a joint statement issued by the PTA (under the leadership of Mrs. C. R. Johnson) and the Kiwanis supporting the creation of a junior college. According to that report, "the biggest question was the moral hazard of sending students away from home" to go to college.

Encouraged by this report, Lee Clark and Judge Murphy made an appeal to the Gainesville City Council, asking its approval of the addition of a junior college to the school system. Clark emphasized that the added cost would be only $5,000 to $6,000 and would entail the hiring of two more master degree teachers. The city council officially created Gainesville Junior College at its regular meeting on May 20, 1924. College tuition was fixed at a later date at $Z5.00 for a three month semester; three semesters constituted an academic year.

In September of 1924, the Gainesville school system opened its doors to a new junior college which even had an evening division. The new college staff welcomed thirtyeight entering freshmen. The original college staff which divided its duties with the high school included: Lee Clark, President; H. O. McCain, Dean; J. R. Manning, Registrar; R. B. Sullivan, Math; Miss Johnnie M. Colbert, History; Voncille Liddell, Modern Languages; Mary Patchell, English; Eugenia Marshall, Education; R. E. Hilliard, Science; Corinne Hamill, Music; Jasper Estes, Basketball Coach for the Gainesville Junior College Bluebirds.

During Lee Clark's tenure as Gainesville school superintendent, he was elected by his peers: President of the Texas State Teachers' Association, Vice President of the National Education Association, and Vice President (1927) and President (1928) of the Texas Association of Junior Colleges. At the spring meeting of the TAJC in Dallas on April 27, 1928, he delivered a paper on 'BThe Place of the Junior College in the Educational Reorganization. In that paper Clark pointed out that the two institutions in the forefront of educational reform were the junior high school and the junior college.

Clark left Gainesville at the end of the 1928 spring term to become superintendent of schools at Plainview. In .1931, he moved to Cisco to become President of Randolph College, a two-year college under the auspices of the Disciples of Christ Church and which was named for his father. This college ultimately failed, similar to the failure of many other private colleges. But its facilities were later used by Cisco Junior College.

A bad heart hampered Lee Clark's professional efforts during the latter years of his life, but at the time of his death at the age of 69, he was administering a twelve county area adult education program headquartered in Eastland. Clark succumbed on February 19, 1941, at his home in Cisco and was buried in Stephenville. On February 24, the Texas Senate eulogized Lee Clark in Senate Resolution 42.

The Texas Historical Commission approved the erection of an offical marker on the campus of [then] Cooke County College to commemorate the efforts of Randolph Lee Clark, Sr., as a pioneer in the Texas Junior college movement.

(Wichita Falls Junior College during the 1930's became Hardin Junior College, and ultimately Midwestern State University. Gainesville Junior College separated from the Gainesville

Independent School District in 1960 to be maintained by a county-wide college district. In 1974, reflecting the trend of the time, "Cooke County Junior College" became "Cooke County College," although remaining a twoyear institution. Click here for "the rest of the story" about the college's rich history.