Clemons

A PASSION FOR JOURNALISM EDUCATION GROWS INTO A PURPOSEFUL AND REWARDING LIFE TOGETHER.

SCHOLASTIC JOURNALISM brought Ron Clemons and Molly (Wiseman) Clemons together in a relationship that included sharing 53 years in the classroom.

The Clemons were married for 40 years when Molly died in September 2022.

“We really got to know each other at the spring 1977 Portland convention, when Molly was JEA president, and I was getting ready to chair the 1977 Kansas City convention,” Ron said. “We talked about journalism and board business and personal things.”

Their relationship grew as they worked on journalism education projects and attended summer meetings, workshops, conventions and officer retreats.

“We saw each other a couple of times a year, and talked a lot because she was JEA president and I was vice president. We discovered we had so much in common,” Ron said. “We both taught journalism, had mutual friends and did things as a group at conventions.”

Both were volunteers in NSPA. “I judged both newspapers and yearbooks, and I always learned,” Molly said. “When my students were transitioning from tabloid to news magazine in the ’70s, judging helped us make the transition. I shared the publications I was judging with my students, and we adapted ideas from other schools..”

Molly recalled an NSPA session at the San Jose, California, convention that influenced how she viewed judging.

San Jose Mercury News editors described a third-place regional contest winner that later won the Pulitzer Prize.

“The panelist said everybody looks at things differently,” Molly said. “It depends on who’s reading and the competition. I always thought that was good to remember. Judging and being judged gives a new perspective because it’s a different set of eyes.”

RON & MOLLY CLEMONS and Howard Spanogle (center) were among the advisers celebrating the 75th anniversary of NSPA at the 1999 Chicago convention. Both Molly Clemonts and Spanogle died in 2022.

The publications Ron advised at Truman High School in Independence, Missouri, were consistent All American award winners. The Spirit newspaper received 37 All Americans and a Pacemaker, and the Heritage yearbook earned its share of All Americans.

“Judging was so important because it gave students another perspective of the work they had done,” Ron said. “It reinforced what we were doing in the classroom.”

The benefits of NSPA went beyond critiques and judging.

“The value of NSPA is in the number of students it touches and the information it provides. For years, Scholastic Editor and Trends magazines gave student journalists and advisers valuable insights into trends and new developments,” Ron said. “It took journalism education beyond the classroom.”

Molly said the organization has also been something students and advisers could depend on.

“The guidance NSPA gives and the exchange of information it makes available are invaluable,” Molly said. “It’s solid, steadfast and reliable. Convention sessions, awards, meeting other students and advisers means you simply cannot walk away from a NSPA experience without gaining from it.”

Ron said the moment he knew they should marry happened at a Washington, D.C., convention after they had walked five miles looking at sites. But the decision to talk to Molly came later when they were both back in their classrooms.

“I was surrounded by students in the journalism room when he called. He mentioned getting married, but I didn’t say much because I didn’t want to give information away to the students,” Molly said.

They married in Reno, Nevada, on their way to the 1982 San Francisco National High School Journalism Convention. In Reno, one of Ron’s former journalism students was best man and Dorothy McPhillips, former JEA president, was Molly’s matron of honor.

When they got to San Francisco, Ron’s brothers and the Northern California Journalism Education Association were hosts for their reception.

In 1997 Ron became director of the George Caleb Bingham Academy of the Arts I, a free, month-long fine arts summer program of the Independence School District, and Molly replaced him when he stepped down in 2011. In 2015, they became the voluntary directors of the Music Arts Institute, another fine arts program in the district.

After years of education and service, they were named Citizens of the Year in Independence, Missouri, in 2015.

“When a couple does so much together, you still have to have individuality,“ Molly said. “That’s why you have to have different outside interests and make your own name for yourself and find your own path.” n

CANDACE & JOHN BOWEN have devoted their careers to journalism education because “America Needs Journalists.”