{"id":1880,"date":"2014-05-02T06:38:40","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T12:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=1880"},"modified":"2014-05-03T15:39:04","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T21:39:04","slug":"1880","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2014\/05\/1880\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Terry Tribune to Sin City’s toast of the town"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Norm<\/a>

Norm Clarke learned to love writing by reading the Miles City Star, and he wrote his first story for the Terry Tribune. He’s come a long way since then, and on Saturday he’ll deliver the commencement address for the graduating class at Montana State University Billings.<\/p><\/div>\n

Norm Clarke agrees: he\u2019s come a long way from his small-town start.<\/p>\n

His lengthy journalism career began when he was in high school in his Eastern Montana hometown of Terry. The personable\u00a0Clarke talked the editor of the local weekly newspaper, the Terry Tribune, into letting him report on a Class C basketball tournament in a nearby town.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long way, in more than miles, from that humble start to Clarke\u2019s current stature as the man-about-town \u2014 a.k.a. gossip \u2014 columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. In his \u201cVegas Confidential\u201d column he chronicles the mischief \u2014 and sometimes heart-warming good deeds \u2014 committed by musicians, magicians and other entertainers; sports personalities; business bigwigs; and politicians of all levels, including the current as well as past presidents. It all makes for a sometimes-you-can\u2019t-make-this-up hodgepodge of human folly and altruism played out on Sin City\u2019s bigger-than-life stage.<\/p>\n

His knack for being at the right spot at the right time, or at least having an excellent network of sources, means that more often than not he breaks big stories first \u2014 today and throughout a career spanning more than 50 years.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s still going strong at age 71, writing up to five columns a week for the Review-Journal. Yet, the guy who left the Treasure State about 40 years ago remains a Montanan at heart and can\u2019t resist a call to come home. He\u2019s doing it again this weekend.<\/p>\n

Commencement speaker<\/h5>\n

He\u2019s scheduled to deliver the commencement address to the 2014 graduating class of Montana State University Billings. The ceremony starts at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Rimrock Auto Arena at MetraPark.<\/p>\n

The occasion will be special for Clarke because his mother, Dorothy, who died in 1990, would have celebrated her 92nd birthday on May 3. And her son says his mother would have added a homey touch to the festivities.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was known in Terry for her caramel rolls and her cinnamon rolls,\u201d Clarke said Wednesday in an interview from his home near the Las Vegas Strip, which he shares with his wife, Cara, and their two dogs.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just loved baking them and giving them to people,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll tell you, if she were alive and in good health, she would be figuring out, \u2018How do I make 7- or 8,000 cinnamon and caramel rolls and get \u2019em up to Billings for Norm\u2019s graduation party?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This will be Clarke\u2019s first college commencement address, although he\u2019s returned to Terry five times to speak at high school graduations since the early 1980s. His loyalty to the Prairie County hamlet prompted him to write his first book, \u201cTracing Terry Trails,\u201d a compilation of town history done to help commemorate its centennial in 1982. And even the frenetic pace of Las Vegas didn\u2019t keep him from penning an article about a Terry High School track star for the Terry Tribune last spring.<\/p>\n

When Clarke talks to young people about the craft of journalism and how to become a professional writer, his message is straightforward. It boils down to something more fundamental than a program of college study and a resulting degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would tell them as I have a number (of times), it\u2019s going to be very important for them to appreciate history. They\u2019ve got to have a love for history because they\u2019re going to be writing history. They\u2019re going to be chronicling the events of their generation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so they\u2019ve got to keep up, they\u2019ve got to read the paper, they\u2019ve got to watch TV, they\u2019ve got to be very aware socially of what\u2019s going on in the world. And not just in their hometown, their home state \u2014 you\u2019ve got to build up your knowledge of world events.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n

Clarke offered additional advice to aspiring journalists.<\/p>\n

Write a lot, he said, because \u201cit\u2019s tougher than ever to come out of college and get a job on a newspaper.\u201d Instead of shooting for a big-city paper (where some of the deepest staff cuts have occurred), young writers should consider applying at a suburban paper or writing for a blog.<\/p>\n

Clarke has proven adaptable to technological change and accepting new outlets for his writing. His columns for the Review-Journal have been available online almost from when he started working in Las Vegas 15 years ago. For the past 10 years, his celebrity blockbusters have gotten extra buzz \u2014 sometimes gone viral, as in the case of Britney Spears\u2019 hours-long marriage \u2014 thanks in part to drawing links from the Drudge Report, Matt Drudge\u2019s mega news aggregator Web site.<\/p>\n

And long before he became a Web presence, Clarke built a reputation as one of the country\u2019s best breaking-news reporters. Notable milestones, all coming after he was hired by the Associated Press in 1973:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Coverage of the Big Red Machine, the Cincinnati Reds juggernaut of the \u201970s, including the society-sports event of the year in 1975 \u2014 the wedding with much fanfare of Hall of Fame catcher Johnny Bench.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The first report on the Beverly Hills Supper Club fire in Southgate, Ky., which claimed 165 lives.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Being part of the reporting team that earned a Pulitzer Prize nomination for reporting on the collapse of a nuclear power plant cooling tower in West Virginia, where 66 construction workers died.<\/p>\n

\u2022 After transferring to San Diego in the early 1980s, encountering embattled Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who had just acquired the then-San Diego-based NBA franchise and who adamantly denied any intent to move the team \u2014 and then promptly did so, to Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Coordinating AP\u2019s coverage of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where he met the CEO of the games, Peter Ueberroth.<\/p>\n

Clarke\u2019s connection to the Olympics chief paid off when Ueberroth was hired as Major League Baseball commissioner after the Games.<\/p>\n

Denver, which then had the AAA baseball Bears, was angling to become one of the next cities awarded a major league franchise. To heighten the drama, the Mile High City was the scene of one of the last true newspaper wars in the United States. It pitted the Rocky Mountain News, known to locals as \u201cthe Rocky,\u201d against the Denver Post.<\/p>\n

Getting the scoop<\/h5>\n

Who would get the scoop on Denver landing a big league baseball team?<\/p>\n

The Rocky certainly wanted to be the winner, enough so that management recruited Clarke away from the AP. He delivered, breaking the news that a new squad called the Rockies would take the field at the Broncos\u2019 Mile High Stadium, this occurring several years before Coors Field was built.<\/p>\n

After a decade of writing sports for the News, Clarke switched to a different type of writing for the paper, a change that became the launchpad for his move to Las Vegas in 1999.<\/p>\n

Recalling this week what happened, Clarke said:<\/p>\n

\u201cI got the bug to work Vegas after the Rocky promoted me to the man-about-town column in 1996. I loved it, but it didn’t take long to figure out that Vegas would be a great last stop. So at the age of 57, I decided to chase my last dream job.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be honest, I missed the AP and the almost-daily rush of turning hot tips into celebrity gold. Some days it’s Britney Spears getting married for a few hours or a shouting match between George Clooney and Steve Wynn. Figured out quite a while ago that I’m a news junkie with a serious adrenalin addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome days,\u201d he added, \u201cI feel like I’m operating a one-man AP bureau in the center of the entertainment universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was evident again earlier this month. Clarke got a tip that Las Vegas casino tycoon Steve Wynn and A-list actor George Clooney, who normally get along well in spite of differing political leanings, had gotten together for dinner. No real story there, except that the sharing of food and drink degenerated into an expletive-laden argument over Barack Obama, Clooney expressing his stout admiration for the president (whom he calls a friend) and Wynn expressing his equally stout contempt for the country\u2019s chief executive.<\/p>\n

Clarke went to work and, after calling Wynn and first asking him about casino expansion plans (none at the moment), got confirmation of the fracas.<\/p>\n

And the story went viral. It got electronic and print media coverage across the United States and around the world, including top billing on the Drudge Report and the Huffington Post. Next thing Clarke knew, he was being interviewed by Matt Lauer on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday Show\u201d about the shouting match.<\/p>\n

Over the phone, you can hear the amazement Clarke feels thinking of where he came from and where he is now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve only been starstruck a few times in my life,\u201d he said. \u201c(One) was when I first got to cover the big leagues \u2026 my second year in Cincinnati and I\u2019m covering Hank Aaron.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Braves are coming to Cincinnati with Hank Aaron one home run shy of Babe Ruth\u2019s record, and (the AP editors) told me I was going to be the lead writer for it. I tell you, I didn\u2019t sleep much the night before. I thought, \u2018Wow, don\u2019t mess this up, Norm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Atlanta slugger tied one of baseball\u2019s most hallowed records, Ruth\u2019s 714 career homers, on April 4, 1974, with Clarke\u2019s AP dispatch the lead sports story for newspapers across the country. He calls the feat a \u201cnumerologist\u2019s delight\u201d because it happened on 4\/4\/74; Aaron\u2019s uniform number was 44; Reds\u2019 pitcher Jack Billingham, who gave up Aaron\u2019s shot, wore number 34; Aaron was batting cleanup, fourth in the order; and Aaron connected on the fourth pitch to him. To top things, four days later, Aaron hit number 715 to surpass Ruth.<\/p>\n

In on the ground floor<\/h5>\n

At that point, it had been little more than a decade since he went to work for the Miles City Star. As a part-time sportswriter in 1963, his paycheck was $50 a week. His economic situation improved, but only slightly, soon afterwards when he landed a full-time sportswriting job with Helena Independent Record, earning $87.50 a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe editor was this kind of stuffed-shirt kind of guy who said, \u2018I don\u2019t want you coming back and asking for more because you\u2019re already under-qualified.\u2019 In other words, I didn\u2019t have a journalism degree. I didn\u2019t really deserve anything more than what he was going to give me because that was it \u2014 you\u2019re really lucky to have a job based on how little background and experience you have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Clarke admits there was some truth in that assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how many reporters could have been more raw than I was when I showed up at a newspaper. I was truly as green a reporter as you could get. But I had found what I wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then 20, Clarke could look back on delivering grocery store ads to the Terry Tribune and asking the editor if he planned to cover the Terriers in the district 4-C Class C basketball tournament in Baker. \u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019m not much of a sports fan but I see you at all the games so why don\u2019t you cover it for me?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember thinking, he\u2019s got to be kidding. You think in terms of being a grocery boy, you don\u2019t think somebody\u2019s going to give you a chance to cover sports. I loved sports. That was the biggest thing in my life when I first started. The guy who covered sports for the local paper was just a god to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had been a newspaper delivery boy and on those long walks (between subscribers\u2019 homes), I just read the Miles City Star from cover to cover. And that\u2019s where I fell in love with words and newspapers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Clarke said he wouldn\u2019t have \u201cdared to dream something (as) grandiose\u201d as reporting on the World Series, the Olympics or the latest shenanigans of pop stars like Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Pamela Anderson, Kid Rock, Tommy Lee and washed-up athletes like Dennis Rodman.<\/p>\n

So, Clarke provides experience-based perspective to those thinking of going into an industry \u2014 newspapers \u2014 under siege.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many times I\u2019ve encouraged kids to go to journalism school,\u201d he said, quickly adding that his success in spite of negative feedback from an editor long ago shows that hard work and openness to opportunity are just as important as a degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo crazy. Write a lot,\u201d he said. And don\u2019t undersell the value of a liberal arts degree at a time when higher education seems to encourage occupation-focused majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow many of us knew what we wanted to be when we were teenagers?\u201d he asked. \u201cHopefully, you\u2019ll find what you really love, and it won\u2019t (seem like) work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Details:<\/h5>\n

Norm Clarke\u2019s columns for the Las Vegas Journal-Review in April 2014 provided insight into two major news stories: The George Clooney-Steve Wynn dinner argument<\/a>\u00a0over conflicting opinions of President Obama, and the travails of Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 owner Donald Sterling<\/a>, now banished for life by the NBA because of his tape-recorded racist comments.<\/p>\n

Clarke has written four books: “Tracing Terry Trails,” 1992; “High hard ones: Denver’s road to the Rockies from inside the newspaper war,” 1993; “Norm Clarke’s Vegas Confidential: Sinsational Celebrity Tales,” 2008; and “Vegas Confidential: Norm! Sin City’s Ace Insider: 1,000 Naked Truths, Hot Spots, & Cool Stuff,” 2010.<\/p>\n

About that patch<\/h5>\n

Norm Clarke\u2019s trademark is the patch over his right eye. What\u2019s the story behind it?<\/p>\n

In his 2008 book, \u201cNorm Clarke\u2019s Vegas Confidential: Sinsational Celebrity Tales,\u201d Clarke described a verbal altercation that year with Criss Angel, an illusionist\/magician who had recently arrived in Vegas:<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t write another word about me, or you\u2019ll need an eye-patch over your other eye,\u201d he cracked.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood one,\u201d I replied. \u201cNever heard that one before.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard a lifetime of one-eyed jokes since losing vision in my right eye at age three when the suspenders on my pants came loose and blinded me. I tolerated the jokes in my youth, after having the eye removed when I was 10. At 65, I was decades past the point of letting someone get away with a cheap shot. Especially a 40-year-old headliner-to-be who should know better.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dennis Gaub is a former newspaper reporter and the author of the forthcoming “Dream Season: how the little Laurel Locomotives steamed to an unbeaten season and captured a historic Montana basketball championship.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Website:\u00a0dennisgaub.me<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norm Clarke agrees: he\u2019s come a long way from his small-town start. His lengthy journalism career began when he was in high school in his Eastern Montana hometown of Terry. The personable\u00a0Clarke talked the editor of the local weekly newspaper, the Terry Tribune, into letting him report on a Class C basketball tournament in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[594,592,596,597,591,593,595],"class_list":["post-1880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","tag-associated-press","tag-las-vegas-review-journal","tag-miles-city-star","tag-montana-state-university-billings","tag-norm-clark","tag-rocky-mountain-news","tag-terry-tribune","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}