Joanne Clark
December 29,
1934 - May 3, 2005
Joanne Clark passed away in Arkansas at 9:20AM EDT on May 3, 2005. She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in October of 1990. In 1994, she and her husband, Chuck, moved to the Big Island in Hawaii and joined ACBL Unit 469`s Kona Bridge Club. Joanne initiated plans for acquiring finances and tracking the development of the Kona Bridge Club`s Bridge Building located on the Hualalai Academy Campus. She utilized the Kona Bridge Club`s not-for-profit status and the association with the Hualalai Academy to campaign for contributions to the Bridge Building. During her fund raising campaign, she raised over $550,000 for the building development. The Bridge Building ground breaking began within 2 years of the fund raising campaign. The building was completed in January 2003. Note ``The Bridge Building`` sign on the building. The building is the home for Kona Bridge Club and is used for Unit 469 sectional tournaments.
Joanne was president of the Kona Bridge Club and during her tenure, she promoted many activities to expand the bridge club`s membership and enjoyment of the game. She initiated bridge classes for grade school children, Easybridge for community members, the bi-monthly pot-luck lunch with bridge, organizing the bridge club`s committees for hospitality, housekeeping, education, publication, and the new bridge book and magazine library.
The bridge for kids classes were organized into two groups; grades 3-6 and 7-10. The two classes each met one day a week during the school hours in the newly built Bridge Building. Joanne organized and presented a lesson for each session in the grades 3-6 and supervised the playing of hands. During the playing of bridge hands, each table was assisted by a Kona Bridge Club member for guidance as needed. The students volunteered for her class and the class was filled during each session. It was a popular class for the students.
Joanne held Easybridge classes one day a week drawing up to 5 tables each week. The attendees were all enthusiastic about learning bridge. Joanne presented the Easybridge material and she had hand-play support from her husband, Chuck.
Joanne initiated a once-a-month bi-monthly pot-luck and individual bridge game to introduce people to duplicate bridge game. Joanne organized the publicity for the event through flyers that were distributed to hotels, restaurants, shops, and work-out clubs throughout the community. The bridge game was an individual rotation movement and winners were awarded small prizes.
Joanne initiated the efforts to create a lending library to house bridge books in a bookcase in the Bridge Building. Club members donated books to the lending library and members organized the library with takeout cards and book lists.
In order to facilitate all the plans Joanne built for the Kona Bridge Club, she formulated committees and assigned committee leaders and asked Kona Bridge Club members to assist in the work of the committees. The committees included an Education Committee, Hospitality Committee, Housekeeping Committee, Publicity Committee, and Library Committee.
Joanne had changed the face of the Kona Bridge Club. She designed plans for the structure that housed the games, plans for expanding the game`s members through education and community awareness, and instilling within the club members a commitment to reach the goals set out by the plans. Joanne`s energy within the bridge environment was boundless. She worked diligently to achieve all the plans in spite of her illness and energy draining medications. She was active in the club meetings and games until she returned to the mainland for medical treatment two weeks before her death.