Bruce Clayton |
| Posted 2008-09-08 by Pat Wilson |
| BRUCE CLAYTON Over Fifty Year Phoenix Resident, Bruce H. Clayton, born in 1934 in Bradshaw, Maryland, a small town 20 miles north of Baltimore, died of a rare and ultimately unbeatable cancer on March 11, 2007. His parents brought him to Arizona in 1947 because of asthma. He attended Whittier, Madison #1, North High, and Phoenix College and received Masters degrees from ASU, and University of Phoenix. In the 60's he taught government and economics for eight years at Carl Hayden High School. In the 50's and 60's he was also an early member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Phoenix, a founder of the first Phoenix chapter of the American Humanist Association, and the initiator of the Phoenix Forum which brought liberal speakers to Phoenix to counter the then extremely conservative views of the Phoenix Newspapers. He was also an early member of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union and served as both Chapter Affiliate and State President and as a member of the National ACLU Board. As a teacher he was a very active member of both the American Federation of Teachers and the Arizona Education Association and served on the first Negotiating Committee with the Phoenix Union High School District. He maintained his friendship with some of his former students throughout his life time. Also, In the 60's he visited 13 countries in the Far East promoting world federalism. A highlight of that decade was his participation in the 1963 Martin Luther King March on Washington. The 1970's found him serving on the ACLU National Staff where he helped create new affiliates and chapters from Vermont to Wyoming. He also coordinated a "Blood, Sweat and Tears" concert in Cleveland to raise money in the wake of the Kent State incident in which several students protesting the Viet Nam war were shot by members of the Ohio National Guard. Returning to Phoenix in the early seventies he met Betty Bucey (Thomas) with whom he had graduated from North High in 1952. Though not knowing one another in high school, nor in the intervening years, they shared a hymnal at the Unitarian church in 1971 and three years later they were married. They remained lovers for the next 35 + years. Also in the 70's, and until his retirement in 1995, he worked as an administrator for the City of Phoenix Human Services Department. He was a member of the National Board of the American Society for Training and Development and headed the Community Development Division of that organization. After his retirement he remained involved in his community as President of his Eastwood Townhouse Association 1997-2001. He visited friends and relatives throughout the country and he and Betty were able to do some long delayed national and international travel. Surviving loved ones include wife Betty, daughters Kelly and Dana, mother Kathryn Pinkham, sisters-in-law Linda Clayton and Carole Thomas, brother-in-law Leonard Tang, and a host of other relatives and friends. He was preceded in death by his younger brother Clark, his father Raymond, and his stepfather Kenneth Pinkham. Visitation and memorial services at A. L. Moore - Grimshaw Mortuary at 710 W. Bethany Home Road. Subsequent scattering of the ashes will occur at the Unitarian Church in Phoenix and over the Pacific Ocean at Laguna Beach, California, where he and Betty enjoyed 35 consecutive years of summer vacations. Burial will be in his family plot at the Fork Methodist Church in Maryland. Published in The Arizona Republic from 3/21/2007 - 3/24/2007. See Also: ASU Memoriams |
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