Use controls above or click here to open this Hometown Heroes podcast in a new window
100-year-old Bob Clark of Clovis, CA appears on episode #717 of Hometown Heroes, airing January 22-24, 2022. A native of Selma, CA, Clark served aboard the battleship USS New Mexico (BB-40) during World War II.

The baritone horn has been Bob’s musical instrument of choice since the 1930s, and he continues to play the baritone at age 100 with the Sounds of Freedom Band. Your next chance to hear Bob and the band in concert will be March 13th, 2022. A free concert will start at 2 p.m. at the Clovis Veterans Memorial District in Clovis, CA. Listen to Hometown Heroes for Bob’s reflections on his lifelong love of music, initially ignited by his mother, a piano teacher.

“I started piano when I was about 5 years old,” you’ll hear Clark say. “But I wanted to march, and you don’t do very much marching with pianos.”

By his middle school years, he was adding strings to his repertoire, saving up thirteen dollars during the Great Depression to buy a violin. He enjoyed his orchestra performances and has fond memories of his mentor, Harvey Whistler, but the violin didn’t afford him the opportunity to march either. In the fall of 1934, as a 12-year-old freshman at Selma High School, he picked up a baritone horn and started marching, and he has been blowing into low brass mouthpieces ever since.

Graduating from high school at age 16 in 1938, he spent the next two years at Reedley College before transferring to Fresno State. On December 7th, 1941, the college student was polishing cars at Allen’s Chevrolet Garage in Selma when he heard a radio broadcast detailing Imperial Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Soon, he would see his Japanese-American friends forced out of their homes and into internment camps. You’ll hear him mention one good friend, Wataru Takeshita, who ended up spending three years behind barbed wire in Arizona before embarking on a distinguished journalism career, in addition to some small acting roles in Hollywood movies. Clark decided to enlist in the Navy, and spent six months in Naval Intelligence at Mare Island, CA. He went aboard the battleship USS New Mexico simply for transportation to Pearl Harbor, but a chance conversation aboard ship altered his military destiny.

“Can I play the baritone in your ship’s band?” Bob remembers having the courage to ask, soon delighted by the response: “Tickled to death.”

Welcomed into the crew because of those musical abilities, he would soon be playing at daily ceremonies, moonlighting with a slide trombone in the ship’s dance band. But being a member of the battleship’s crew came with other responsibilities when general quarters sounded, and for Bob that meant helping corpsman in delivering first aid when necessary. January 6, 1945 is one of those occasions that stands out.

“I was talking to the senior medical officer on the intercom,” you’ll hear Clark recall. “I heard BANG! And I’d never heard a bang like that before.”

A Japanese plane had crashed into the battleship’s bridge, killing the commanding officer, Captain Robert Fleming, and 29 others. 89 more were wounded in the attack, and Bob Clark was soon helping to triage patients for treatment. This episode also includes another perspective on that kamikaze attack, courtesy of Grant Erickson, who was just six feet away from the captain when the Japanese plane crashed into the ship. Click here to access Erickson’s complete original interview from episode #415 of Hometown Heroes in 2016.

After surviving the war, Clark returned to his native San Joaquin Valley, where he and his wife, Frances, raised their family. Bob became a teacher and administrator at Edison High School in Fresno, and later returned to Reedley College as a counselor. His daughter Cheri, who organized a 100th birthday extravaganza for Bob, calls him “the best dad in the world,” and recalls how many extra musical gigs he would accept in an effort to provide for their family.

“An opportunity to express oneself,” is how you’ll hear Bob describe why he loves music so much. As for how long he’ll keep performing with the Sounds of Freedom? “Until they kick me out.”

When you hear longtime band mate Harry Paul call him a “wonderful person,” and examine the lengths to which the Sounds of Freedom went to make Bob’s 100th birthday special, it’s pretty clear that Clark has nothing to worry about. Click here for Brooke Chau’s reporting on Bob’s 100th birthday from the Clovis Roundup newspaper, and watch the video below for how the Sounds of Freedom marked his birthday at their rehearsal:

Watch (and listen) to Bob and his bandmates in action from their most recent summer concert series in the video below: