FREEPORT
Maine state senators honored former legislative leader Nancy Randall Clark of Freeport, who passed away on Dec. 28, at a session in the Senate chamber on Tuesday morning.
Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick, spoke in memory of Clark, whom he called a friend and mentor.
“To see her be able to do her trade of being a legislator, I learned an awful lot,” he said. “But I watched her with other people, how she mentored them and they got to learn.”
Clark was the first woman to serve as Maine’s Senate majority leader. Since 1973, she also served three terms in the House of Representatives and seven terms in the Senate.
“She loved this institution more than most things, but she loved her Grange, she loved her education, teachers,” Gerzofsky added.
Clark taught in the Scarborough and Freeport school systems for 40 years, and was the president of the Maine Teachers Association at one point.
She was also known for her involvement with the Harraseeket Grange for over four decades and several other community organizations, including the Cumberland County Retired Educators Association, the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals. She was also a lifelong member of the South Freeport Congregational Church.
‘Trailblazing’ work
Gerzofsky also commended Clark’s “trailblazing” work as a female legislative leader and recalled a time when Clark, as a member of the House, had called out a male representative for addressing her as “ma’am.”
“They used to call a lot of our women legislators back in those days ‘ma’am’ …” Gerzofsky said. “She said, ‘I earned the respect of being called a legislator, being called Representative Clark. There will be no more ma’am.’ By golly, I’ll tell you there was never any more ‘ma’am’ about it.”
Clark had become ill while away on a Grange event, Gerzofsky said, though he had seen her a few days before she passed at her home, watching the clam flats and clammers at the bottom of her field, which was something “she loved to do.”
“I just can’t say enough how important she was to this body — to the women that are going to serve here or that have served here; to the members, whether they are male or female, that are in this building; to the kids that came through here and got a bit of an education from her about this chamber,” he concluded.
Gerzofsky, along with several other senators, sponsored the Joint Resolution in Memoriam for Clark on Tuesday.
South Freeport Congregational Church will host a celebration of the life of Clark on Jan. 30 at 11 a.m. In case of inclement weather, the service will be held Feb. 6 at 11 a.m.
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