Longtime AP Atlanta Bureau Chief to Retire

By: Gary W. Clark, chief of bureau for Georgia and Alabama, will retire July 27 after a 40-year career with The Associated Press.

Clark, who has headed the Atlanta bureau for 16 years, is currently AP's longest-serving U.S. bureau chief. He has worked as a bureau chief for 33 years, leading operations in Honolulu, New Orleans and Miami before coming to Georgia.

Clark joined the AP in 1969 in Fargo, N.D., and then transferred to Minneapolis in 1971. He was appointed state correspondent in Bismarck, N.D., in 1972. He became Minneapolis news editor in 1975 and was appointed chief of bureau in Hawaii in 1976.

During his career, Clark led the coverage when Category 5 Hurricane Andrew struck Miami and when a Mississippi plane crash killed Lynyrd Skynyrd musician Ronnie Van Zant. Clark also covered the space shuttle Challenger explosion; the 1996 Olympic park bombing in Atlanta; Fidel Castro in Cuba; and the return of remains of Japanese soldiers killed in World War II to their homeland.

While in Florida, Clark was the first non-newspaper editor to be elected president of the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. He also was a founding director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, a former director of the Atlanta Press Club and a founding member of the Alabama Center for Open Government.

During his tenure in Atlanta, AP coordinated a major open records audit in Georgia and teamed with the Alabama Associated Press Managing Editors and the Alabama Center for Open Government to conduct an extensive open records audit in Alabama.

Clark is active in the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association and serves as chairman of the group's photo contest committee chairman.

Before joining AP, he worked for the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel, his hometown paper, and was sports editor at the Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune. He is a graduate of Boston University.