‘She made you feel like the most special kid’

The Book of Carol. This is what Boardman High School’s Michele Prokop and Bill Amendol call the many lessons they learned from Carol Clark ’61, a longtime orchestra leader and music teacher in the Northeast Ohio school district. “The most important lesson was to make the kids feel good about themselves,” says Amendol, who now directs the high school’s orchestra with Prokop. “Carol made music and the arts into something important in our school district.”

Clark, 86, died on Nov. 28. She was the first female trombonist in the Columbus Symphony Orchestra and then returned to Boardman Township (she was a 1957 honors graduate), teaching there from 1971 to 1999 and building one of the state’s top orchestras and music departments. After retiring, Clark bred Norwich terriers, winning many state competitions, and competed in the prestigious Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Prokop and Amendol met Clark while they were in elementary school when she came to recruit members for the district’s two middle school orchestras, which she also led. “Whenever you talked with her one-on-one, she made you feel like you were the most special kid in the world,” Prokop says. “She led with grace, and she inspired so many kids.”

One was Jennifer Cancio, a violinist and member of Leather & Lace Acoustic, a band based in Youngstown, Ohio. She, too, was introduced to Clark in elementary school and played for her throughout middle school and in high school, for the classical orchestra, chamber orchestra and symphony.

“Having Miss Clark as a stable, female role model during a time in life that can be difficult for so many kids was so impactful,” Cancio says. “She pushed us toward this common goal, but she always did it with a smile and a laugh and an easygoing nature, and we knew she always had our best interests in mind.”