Benton Clyde Clark III, right, with his younger brother Jim and mother Ruth.
From left, B. C. Clark Jewelers founder B. C. Clark, Benton Clyde Clark III, and Benton Clark, Jr.
Born in Oklahoma City, Benton Clyde Clark III attended Cleveland Grade School, Taft Junior High, and Classen High School. Scientifically curious, from an early age Clark knew he would not be entering the family jewelry business. “The only experience I have with jewelry was a pocket watch my grandfather gave me. I took the watch apart to see how it worked,” he once told a reporter. Clark enrolled at the University of Oklahoma (OU), where a perfect score on the mathematics entrance exam earned him advanced placement in the Department of Physics. After graduating from OU, he earned his masters
Dubbed “America’s Youngest Jeweler”, Benton Clyde Clark III was the feature of a B. C. Clark Jewelers advertisement promoting the annual celebration sale.
in Nuclear Physics from the University of California and his doctorate in Biophysics from Columbia University. While serving in the United States Air Force, where he achieved the rank of Captain, Clark developed an instrument to measure radiation in space. The instrument flew on both the Gemini 4 and Gemini 6 missions. Following his time at Tulsa’s AVCO, Clark joined Martin Marietta. For the Mars landing mission Viking , he was responsible for conceiving and developing the x-ray fluorescence spectrometer (XRFS) used in analyzing the Martian soil. In receiving the data and studying the chemical soil makeup, Clark became the first person in history to know what the soil on Mars was made of. With the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity , the wide-ranging exploration was made possible, in addition to clues relating to water activity on Mars. And, his expertise on the Phoenix probe to Mars brought new discoveries on the red planet’s polar regions. He conceived the OSIRIS-REx mission that recently returned samples of an organic-rich asteroid.
13 BC CLARK MAGAZINE
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