The Robey H. Clark Professorship

The Department of Geology and Geophysics has selected Gary R. Byerly to be the first Robey H. Clark Professor of Geology at LSU.  The announcement was made by Dean of Basic Sciences Harold Silverman and Chair of Geology and Geophysics Brooks Ellwood at a May banquet honoring the donors and recipients of several professorships in geology.  Professor Byerly has been on the LSU faculty for 24 years, and previously served as departmental chair for five years.

Mr. Robey H. Clark, LSU Geology alumnus, BS class of 1943, recently established an endowment to fund the Robey H. Clark Professorship in Geology and Geophysics at Louisiana State University.  On May 17th Mr. Clark was honored at a luncheon hosted by the Department of Geology and Geophysics and held at the Lod Cook LSU Alumni Center on University Lake.

Mr. Clark is a distinguished alumnus of LSU Geology. He was born in Mound, Louisiana and went to schools in Tallulah. After graduating from LSU he became an officer in the Navy for the remainder of World War II. He then attended the University of Wisconsin where he obtained an MS degree in Geology. He worked as an exploration and production geologist for Magnolia and Mobil until he became Vice-President of Exploration and Production of Diamond Shamrock Corporation in 1971. During his industry career he published a number of papers on the petroleum geology of the deltas of Louisiana and the Anadarko Basin of western Oklahoma.

Mr. Clark is now retired, but far from inactive. He is a 50-year member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, was national president in 1980-81, is now a member of the AAPG House of Delegates and a Trustee of the AAPG Foundation. He was recently given Honorary Membership in AAPG because of his "distinguished service and devotion to the science and profession of petroleum geology".  Several years ago Mr. Clark joined with three other LSU Geology alumni who were AAPG Foundation Trustees to establish a $10,000 library gift to the Department. AAPG, with over 31,000 members, is the largest organization of geologists in the world.  He also contributed, along with other members of the Geology Alumni Advisory Council, to establish an endowment for the H. V. Howe Professorship in Geology at LSU. Doc Howe founded the LSU Geology Department in 1922 and taught at LSU for over forty years.