CLINTON – The Clinton School District and Clinton High School Hall of Honor Committee announced their selections for the 2022 Hall of Honor class on Friday.
The newcomers are Dr. Herbert Burkert, Larry Davis, Duke Slater and Dr. Addison Killean Stark.
The mission of the Clinton High School Alumni Hall of Honor is to recognize those who attended Clinton High School and who excelled in their careers, communities, and personal lives. These individuals are held up to Clinton students as examples of citizenship and achievement.
The introduction of the 2022 Hall of Honor Class will take place in conjunction with the Academic Awards ceremony scheduled for April 2022.
“The third Hall of Honor class continues to show the high quality of the nominees,” said Dennis Duerling, Chairman of the Hall of Honor Committee, at the announcement. “They also cover four of the different areas of recognition for the CHS Hall of Honor: a respected military veteran who did everything for his country during the war, a graduate who broke racial barriers in the Chicago judicial system, a nationally recognized artist, and a CHS- Graduate who has become a national leader in energy innovations. “
Burkert, CHS class from 1943, was nominated for excellent military service. Burkert was drafted into the army on January 18, 1944. After training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, he entered the Second World War in France on August 23, 1944. Burkert was involved in heavy acts of war and was captured by the Germans on November 30, 1944. He is taken to Stalag 7A, the largest prisoner of war camp in Germany.
Burkert and other inmates were able to dig a tunnel over a period of five months; he escaped the day before his execution. For his military service, Burkert was awarded the Bronze Star, the Good Conduct Medal, the Combat Infantry Badge and the Rifle Badge by the US government. On his return to the States, Burkert attended the Palmer College of Chiropractic and graduated with a doctorate in 1948.
He opened a practice in Clinton and was heavily involved in the Clinton Jaycees, including as President in 1955. He died in 1965.
Larry Davis, CHS Class of 1963, was nominated in the Art category. He attended the University of Iowa with a major in Art and a minor in Education. Davis was then drafted into the military, where he served for four years. He returned in 1972 and began his career as a professional artist while teaching part-time at Clinton High School.
In the 1980s, Davis began creating a series of annual screen prints depicting the four seasons in Eagle Point Park. The profits from their sale went to the Clinton Community College Foundation. This resulted in a lifelong friendship with CCC President Dr. Charles Spence, who led Davis to become a teacher at the CCC. While at CCC, the foundation sponsored an exhibition featuring artists from Iowa and those in Iowa’s sister city of Kofu, Japan.
A crucial time in Davis’s career was when Spence accepted the position as President of Florida State College in Jacksonville. Davis followed Spence and enjoyed a 23-year career in resource development, as a full faculty member, and as a visual arts coordinator. Davis has since moved back to the Midwest and runs a studio with a regular exhibition schedule.
Duke Slater, CHS Class of 1916, was nominated for a career nomination for barriers to practice in Chicago as an attorney and judge. During his career in the National Football League, Slater returned to the University of Iowa in the off-season, graduating with a law degree in 1928. After retiring from football, he began his legal career in Chicago.
In 1948, Slater was elected the second African American to be a judge in the city of Chicago. In 1960 he became the first black judge on the Superior Court of Chicago, then the highest court in the city. Slater moved to the Circuit Court of Cook County when that court was created in 1964. Slater died in 1966.
Addison Killean Stark, 2002 CHS Class, was nominated for Academic Achievement. After graduating from CHS, Stark attended the University of Iowa and earned degrees in math and chemistry. He served in an organization focused on advanced thermochemical conversion into fuels and chemicals, energy innovation in agricultural systems, and the intensification of reactor systems for energy conversion.
Stark later earned his Ph.D. from MIT. Stark is currently the Director of Energy + Environment at Clark Street Associates, a strategic consulting firm based in Silicon Valley and Washington, DC. Previously, he was Associate Director, Energy Innovation at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Prior to joining BPC, Stark was a Fellow with the US Department of Energy, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, focusing on early stage energy technology development and research and development in various sectors including renewable fuels, green industrial chemistry, Dry cooling technologies to save water in power generation, advanced sensor systems for agriculture and the use of advanced manufacturing technologies to manufacture energy devices.
While at ARPA-E, he was also Associate Program Director for ARPA-E’s $ 33 million Energy-Water Nexus portfolio, the Advanced Research In Dry-cooling (ARID) program. Stark is the author of several peer-reviewed journal articles and popular press articles on a variety of topics in energy technology innovation, including: advanced biofuels, hybrid PV / solar thermal energy, energy-water nexus, leveraging additive manufacturing to chemical reactor design, and innovation in energy technology and finance. Stark is currently an associate professor at Georgetown University.
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