ANGELA CLARKE PACKS BIG
PUNCH IN SENIOR COMMUNITY
BY MARC DAVID
Angela Clarke epitomizes a fighter.
A woman given a cancer death sentence just before she turned 70, the
Sun City Summerlin resident has fought back with a vengeance.
But then, Clarke was always a fighter. She grew up in Baltimore in a
family of 10 children. Her mother, Cora Webb, demanded good grades.
Bs were met with more than disapproval -- they were met with
corporal punishment.
"I don't have a mark anywhere on me," Clarke says.
Part of that is because as one of the youngest in her family, she
was towards the end of the line of getting hit. The other part is
she didn't get many Bs. Nine of the 10 Webb children graduated from
college, with 27 advanced degrees among them. Cora Webb attended
finishing school and
became an illustrator for a black newspaper in Baltimore. Angela
Clarke has far exceeded her mother.
When ailments forced her to retire as a physician in her mid-50s,
Clarke left behind an impressive resume. A graduate of Morgan State
University, Clarke was summa cum laude from the University of
Maryland School of Medicine.
When she graduated from Maryland, she telegrammed her mother who /at
the time was living in California with the words, "Can I stop school
now?" Her mother didn't attend her graduation, sending her the
airfare money with a note saying, "It's more important for you to
have this (air- fare money) than for me to be there."
Clarke is also an Air War College graduate. She's listed in Who's
Who of American Women, Who's Who in the West, Two Thousand Women of
Achievement, Director of Medical Specialists and Personalities of
the West and Midwest.
She has mastered five languages besides English -- Latin, French,
German, Spanish and Hebrew. She did some traveling with Harry James,
serving as personal physician to the renowned bandleader.
Clarke
is a Korean War and Gulf War veteran. She didn't serve on the front
lines in either, but she was in Air to Ground Communications in
Tokyo at the time of the Korean War, which made her eligible to
receive college tuition.
She was a physician for 10 years in Beverly Hills. During that time,
she made television appearances on the Dating Game and Let's Make a
Deal, as well as appearing in commercials and as an extra in movies
such as 1,000 Miles to Graceland.
Upon moving to Las Vegas in 1975, she became the first
board-certified family practitioner in Nevada. When a bleeding
disorder forced her to retire from private practice and the Air
Force reserves in 1987, Clarke, who believes in holistic healing,
turned to Tai Chi, "a healing form of martial arts"; she says.
Clarke, 71, who has three grown children, moved to Sun City eight
years ago and threw herself into a myriad of activities. She is a
member of the Lynette Jazz Dancers, Sun City Folk Dancers, Sun City
Sun Cats, plays piano and recently performed in a choreography
showcase where she was among a group that did a senior hip hop
dance.
It's quite an impressive list of activities for a woman who was
diagnosed with cancer two years ago. Two weeks after her last
surgery, she was on the stage dancing.
"I was told not to lift my arms up," says Clarke. "But how do you
dance without lifting your arms?"
There's no slowing Clark, who says, "The secret to retiring is to
make sure you are as busy as you were when you were working and that
you enjoy what you are doing. The more I do, the happier I am, the
less pain or aches I feel."
Pages 90 and 91
THE MAGAZINE OF SUMMERLIN, May 2004 |
|
This symbol indicates:
