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clark selby
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of AUTHOR
MY STORY
Clark Selby was born in Miami, Oklahoma on September 20, 1936 -- just 29 years after Oklahoma became a state. Today, Miami is the headquarters for six Native American Tribes.
Clark attended school in Oklahoma and Kansas. He worked for a printing and stationary store after he and his first wife, Patricia, were married in 1952. His father-in-law, Jack Hayes, a master watchmaker, taught Clark how to repair clocks, which gave Clark the opportunity to get a job repairing the parking meters in Hutchinson, Kansas.
Jack knew the man who took care of the parking meters for the city, and he also knew that every winter the man would quit his job and go to Florida. Winter always caused the most problems with the meters. After Clark had some time to learn how to repair clocks. He began repairing clocks for three local jewelry stories.
When Clark found out the parking meter serviceman quit his job repairing the parking meters. Clark applied for the job. The Police Chief checked with the jewelry stores and found that Clark was doing a good job for them. So, the Police Chief hired him for the job of taking care of the parking meters.
Later, when a new city manager was hired. He decided that he wanted to take the operation of the parking meters system out of the police department. The city manager visited with Clark and he became the new Director of Parking for the City of Hutchinson, Kansas.
Some years later, Clark left the city to a accept a job as a Parking Meter Service Engineer for Duncan Parking Meter Company, the manufacturing of the parking meters located in Chicago. In this position, Clark traveled Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. In this job he was doing new installations of new parking meters systems and teaching people how to repair the parking meters.
Later, Clark left Duncan and became the Assistant Director of Transportation and Parking for the University of Iowa. Then worked as a Parking Consultant for De Leuw Cather Company in Chicago, overseeing the parking system. To be certain that the system was been being properly ran and maintained to protect the interest of the bond holders. They had provided the money to build several parking garages in downtown Chicago and they wanted to be sure that the parking system would be able to pay back their investment. In this position, he was also assigned to be the Project Manager for a Parking Study in Perth, Western Australia, as well as other cities in the USA.
Clark went back to work for Duncan Industries in the Engineering Department; then was promoted to become the Director of Manufacturing; then Vice President of International Sales, in this job he was awarded the President of the United States “E” Award, for Excellence in Exporting. Which required his company to increase export sales by 20% for three straight years and have sales in at least three new countries for three consecutive years, a total of at least nine new countries. His last job with Duncan was President of the company.
Clark left Duncan and his last position in the parking industry was as President of Worldwide Parking Corporation, this company established and owned and operated parking systems on four continents, Europe; Asia; North and South America. This was the job that he had before he had to retire to be able to care for his first wife, Patricia after she became paralyzed. He continued to care for her until she passed away.
Clark had spent over forty-five years in the parking business working on six continents and in sixty-five countries.
Clark’s father-in-law, Jack Hayes, never knew what his time spent working nights teaching Clark to repair clocks would lead to. It helped him land a job with the city of Hutchinson fixing parking meters, which turned into a decades-long career in the parking industry. Jack died at just 47 years old while Clark still was working for the police department. Clark could only hope he would have been very proud to know of the opportunities that he gave him and the success he had in the parking business.
While Clark was caring for his first wife, Patricia he began writing novels. He wrote five novels, four of them about the CIA’S battle to stop al Qaeda Terrorists from harming American’s: Dangerous Journey, Book One; Dangerous Food, Book Two; Dangerous Cargo, Book Three and Dangerous Enemy, Book Four.
His fifth novel was a love story based on two sixteen years old falling in love and getting married. Titled Together Forever, the story follows their lives for forty-five years. This was a fictionalized story based on Clark’s and Patricia's life. After this book was published, it received a positive review by US Review of Books and the publisher awarded the book The Gold Seal of Literary Excellence. Several of his books have now been given this same award.
Clark continued writing novels and after his wife Patricia passed away and he married a long-time friend of both his first wife, Patricia and him, Karen Serene Sweeney.
He wrote another book about what happened after Patricia passed, The Power of Love. This book tells how he felt about losing his wife and how he found love again with someone he had known for years.
Clark has written four Westerns: A Cowboy Named Indian, a prequel to Indian Leader Trail Boss; Where’s My Wife? and Two Cowboys in New York.
Growing up in Oklahoma and Kansas, Westerns were a natural subject for Clark to write about. Since he had a steady diet of these stories growing up as well as living and visiting the places where many of these great westerns took place, it was an easy fit.
Clark has recently written a fifth CIA installment in his spy-thriller series called Dangerous Mission, and a murder mystery he wrote on a world cruise called Cruise Ship Murders.
His Dangerous series uses places from around the world where Clark had actually worked. Like Hong Kong, where he visited two or three times a year for many years.
Clark & his son Robert spent five years as Publishers of The Eateries Magazine and Show Guide for Branson, Missouri, publishing up to 100,000 books per year.
Clark spent more than six years serving in the Army and Air Force Kansas National Guards before he began traveling in the parking industry and was a Sergeant in radio communications.
He has been listed in the Who’s Who in the World from 1988 to 1999 and Who’s Who in America from1995 to 1999.
Clark and his wife Karen Serene Selby live in Springfield, Missouri.
Clark & Karen have done a lot of traveling since they married, visiting ninety-two countries. And, they have taken one around-the-world cruise that brought them to six continents.
Clark always enjoyed seeing new places and meeting new people. The virus certainly slowed down our traveling, but he hopes they may soon be able to find new ventures with interesting places to see and people to meet.
And, of course, Clark will continue to write more novels. He only hopes his books will always tell a good story.
MY BOOKS
Together Forever
by Clark Selby
Trafford Publishing
reviewed by Michael Radon
"She's really pretty and she makes me feel wonderful when I am with her. Grandma, I love her and I'm going to marry her. "
High school sweethearts Chance Clark and Ann Harris waste no time falling head over heels for each other. The couple decide to drop out of school and get married, seeing no other option that will make them happy, and are determined to make their marriage work no matter what kind of struggles they face. Whether it's barely having enough money to survive or starting a family sooner than expected, the newlyweds are steadfast in their belief that as long as they have each other, they can be happy. Fortune comes and goes as the story shares the details of their lives and their love, as Chance finds an unlikely source of steady employment and their family grows and prospers, only to find
roadblocks and speed bumps along the way.
What makes this book such a compelling read is the heartfelt emotions that the main characters feel for each other. Any reader who has faced a difficulty in their life and overcome it with the support of loved ones will have their spirits lifted as the Clarks find ways to make everything work with grit and ingenuity. Chapters of success can be stripped away with one unforeseen event, and readers will feel the devastation along with the characters, who are so honest and caring that it is impossible not to root for them. For a story centered on love, this book really shares the qualities and benefits of such a union with the reader, inviting them to look at the lives of two children who did everything they had to to be together no matter what the odds.
RECOMMENDED by the USR
