Courtesy photo / Melinda Clarke, 78, an Altoona native who now lives in Hawaii, recently received the Maui Peace Hero Award for her ongoing work as a peace activist. She used to be an English teacher at Roosevelt Junior High School and Altoona Area High school, but moved to Japan in 1980 where she initiated a project interviewing atomic bomb survivors.

An Altoona native who refers to herself as a peace advocate has been recognized this year with the “Maui Peace Hero Award” given annually in recognition of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Melinda Clarke, who now lives in Hawaii and will be 79 years old in November, said she was pleased with the recent recognition of her life’s passion to pursue peace by describing and showing the horrors of war.

In a book titled “Waymarkers for Peace: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Survivors Speak,” published in 2018, Clarke renders personal accounts of atomic bomb survivors she collected through interviews.

She also sought out photographs and gained access to 35 mm films taken by residents, American soldiers, survey teams and the B-29 bomber crews who flew over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A portion of her efforts can be viewed at www.worldaloha.net.

“Did you watch the ‘Lost Generation’ film?” she recently asked about a 20-minute film showing the deteriorated skin of atomic bomb survivors. “It’s not something you go to the Redbox to see.”

So how did Clarke, born in Altoona in 1940, become a peace activist?

Teaching on the seas

Her passion likely developed while she was in her mid-20s. That’s when she left Altoona and traveled to Japan at the invitation of a young man she met during the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City.

In the two years that followed, Clarke taught English and history aboard an Australia-bound cruise ship and she did some traveling through the Asia-Pacific region.

In 1966, she returned to Altoona, got a job teaching English at Roosevelt Junior High School and Altoona Area High School. She occasionally wrote for the Altoona Mirror, including a column called “Journeys Big and Small,” as well as the Johnstown Tribune- Democrat and the Harrisburg Patriot News.

But in 1980, Clarke was ready to leave her hometown again. It was a few months after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979, and after, Clarke recalled seeing the word “Hiroshima” written in the clouds against the sky. As a single mother with two children, she took that sighting as a sign and started packing.

With the help of a sponsor, she and the children moved to Japan where she began teaching English to intermediate and high school students. And shortly after settling in, she started a side project: interviewing survivors of the atomic blast in Hiroshima.

Over the next two decades, Clarke taught English in Taiyuen, China, opened her own school in Hiroshima and presenting never-before-seen films that documented the unfathomable devastation of Hiroshima.

She continued to live in Japan until 2010 when she moved to Maui, which has become home. Her passion for peace and writing has remained intact. In 2017, she entered an essay contest to answer the question: “How can we obey the law against war?”

Her first-place entry was read in public by Maui County Mayor Alan Arakawa in August 2017, then by Hawaii Gov. Dave Ige a month later in recognition of “International Day of Peace in Hawaii.”

Remembering Altoona

Clarke said she has made many return trips to Altoona, including one last year for the 60th reunion of the Altoona Area High School Class of 1958.

“Altoona is so special to me … and I’m so lucky to have been born and raised there,” she said. “I learned a strong work ethic and spiritual importance. But mostly, growing up in Altoona was fun, family and friends.”

Longtime Altoona friends, she said, include Shirley Hippo, Judy Grove, Duane Bordel and C. David Kimmel.

“Melinda is a unique person in many, many ways,” Kimmel said. But she also is very loving and kind and a peaceful kind of person, which likely extends into the work she’s doing.”

When advised of Clark’s recent recognition as a peace hero award winner, Kimmel said he wasn’t surprised.

“Whatever she gets into, she goes the whole way on it,” he said.

When Clarke returns to Altoona, she said she enjoys dining at Tom & Joes and Texas Hot Dogs, and she likes scrapple.

But she has no plans for a permanent return.

“Once you leave and pull up roots, it would be hard to go back again and settle,” she said.

Still, she enjoys hearing Altoona news from her longtime friends and those who knew her family. Her parents were Robert and Louise (Eckley) Clarke, who operated a heating and plumbing business before her father became the local assemblyman in the state House of Representatives. He held that job at the time of his death in 1967.

Clarke credits Altoona — as well as her wonderful parents — for helping her understand “the importance of carving out a life and not just a job.”

And that importance may be a reason why she has plans for the future.

“On my 80th birthday, I’m going to be riding on the Trans-Siberan Railway,” she said.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 946-7456.