In Memory of Dr. Val Clear

Abstract

Dr. Valorous Bernard (Val) Clear died August 21, 1992 following a stroke in Anderson, Indiana. Val was a lifelong aviculturist and member of AFA.

Val was born in 1915 in Kendallville, Indiana. He lived and taught in Lima, Peru for several years where he married his wife, Evelyn Clark. She died on Christmas day in 1981. They had three sons, Scott, Todd and Bruce. Val moved to Anderson, Indiana in 1947. He was an ordained minister and taught criminology at Anderson University for 33 years. He became head of the Sociology department before retiring in 1980. Following retirement, he went to work as coordinator of sentencing for the Madison County Unified Courts where he served as a probation officer and founded the re-entry program for exoffenders. Val also co-founded the Anderson Urban League and was the Indiana chairman of the Justice fellowship.

Val was a deeply religious and just individual who respected the rights and freedom of choice for all people regardless of their race, sex or sexual orientation. His pastor described him as the most liberal Christian he had ever met. Among the numerous awards he received during his life was a lifetime service award from the congregation of the Park Place Church of God where he had been a member since 1947. Val cherished this award above all others he had received because it reflected who he was and not what he had done.

Val was an active member of AFA.

He wrote numerous articles for the Watchbird, the most recent one in the Jan/Feb 1992 issue on South American Finches. Val also lectured at several AFA conventions and provided luncheon entertainment with a talk on his travels to Peru and Peruvian birds. Val was a participant in the Red Siskin project and consortium. He was also a member of the CITES committee and traveled to numerous CITES and IAT A (International Air Transport Association) meetings on the behalf of AFA, most recently attending and reporting on this year's meeting in Kyoto, Japan. Val received the AFA Gold Avy award in 1977 for outstanding contributions to the field of aviculture, nationally and internationally.

Val developed an interest in birds at an early age, keeping pigeons through much of his childhood and always having some type of bird around as he traveled and went to school. When he settled down in Anderson, he began raising exotic birds as well as caring for native, wild, orphaned and injured birds. Val regularly imported, kept and bred South American softbills including siskins, Peruvian Tanagers, bananaquits, Brazilian Cardinals, Collared Warbling Finches, Parrot-billed Seedeaters, honeycreepers, leaf birds, Pekin Robins and numerous hummingbirds. The hummingbirds (or hummers as he called them) were his favorites. He had an extensive collection of Peruvian hummingbirds as well as beautiful full color books, magazines and videotapes on them. Val also kept and raised two species often neglected by U.S. aviculturists, the house sparrow and European Starling.

Val wrote prolifically not only on birds but also on social, criminal and religious matters. He published eight books, five of which were on birds including the popular ''Making Money with Birds'.' At the time of his death, he was working on yet another book with one of his sons on "non-retirement'.' Val also wrote articles for many bird journals, especially the American Cage Bird Magazine where he was a contributing editor for 30 years. Val also wrote exten- sively to people, answering questions regarding aviculture to kids, novice bird breeders and aviculturists from all over the country and around the world. His love of writing would show up in even the shortest memo he would regularly send to me accompanying some sample or answering a question I had posed in a previous conversation. His style of writing always had an element of humor and personal experience in it. Shortly before retiring, Val was offered an opportunity by a publisher to spend his retirement writing books and living by the ocean, two things Val had wanted to do all of his life. Val declined, however; his love of writing was great but the thought of moving away from his lifelong friends and congregation was too much, he valued their friendship over his own interests.

I knew and worked with Val as his friend and veterinarian for seven years, a short time compared to many of his colleagues and friends. During that time, I came to admire him for all he did for aviculture and his fellow man. He always made time for me and spent hours relating the "early" days of aviculture, soft bill and finch husbandry and his travels. Val loved to travel and we had planned a trip to the Manu Jungle in Peru this fall. Val kept a small but manageable collection of softbills in his house from which I learned to appreciate a segment of aviculture to which I would not have otherwise been exposed. As his veterinarian, I became proficient at surgically sexing three inch, 15 gram tanagers and diagnosing and treating two gram Hermit Hummingbirds.

Val loved his birds and aviculture and was deeply disturbed by recent trends in...
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