WOWT News Director Works From HomeAs Battle With Cancer Intensifies

The newsman in WOWT (Cox Channel 8) News Director John Clark perked up when a reporter reached him earlier this week to check on his health.

Rick Gevers of Rick Gevers & Associates, a talent representation firm based in Indianapolis, Ind., had reported on his website that Clark was losing his ongoing battle with cancer. The story encouraged readers to e-mail Clark with their well wishes.

"I've been battling non-Hodgkin Lymphoma for 11 years so the only thing 'new' is the fact that we're running short on options," Clark wrote in an e-mail to The Reader's Media Notes.

According to the National Cancer Institute, adult non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma is a disease in which cancer cells form in the lymph system. Clark said he has undergone a variety of treatments for the disease, including chemotherapy drugs, radiation, surgery and even an autologus stem-cell transplant in 1997.

The next step, he said, is to explore the possibility of a bone marrow transplant.

"I've been fortunate enough to be able to work continuously, with the exception of a short period during that (stem-cell) transplant, until recently," Clark wrote.

Clark told WOWT staffers last week about the change in his condition, which necessitated cutting back on regular office hours. People who e-mail him at the station receive an automated reply which reads, "I will be out of the office until further notice."

Getting through this difficult time in his life, Clark said, would not have been possible without the support from a wonderful family, great friends and tremendous colleagues at the station who have kept things going in his absence.

"My wife of 37 years (Joyce) has been my 'rock.' There is not a better caretaker in the world," Clark wrote. "WOWT - in particular my boss Frank Jonas - couldn't have been better to me during all this. I can't tell you how much I appreciate their support."

Clark is approaching his 16th year as WOWT's news director. On Dec. 31, 1990, he succeeded Steve Murphy, who had worked as the station's news director for 20 years and at WOWT since 1949. From 1972 to 1978, Clark worked as a reporter for KMTV (Cox Channel 5) and WOWT.