In the inscription process for the U.S. Army, certain intelligence tests were administered and, on the basis of his performance on these, John Scott was kept States side to continue his education on a military base in Oregon. During his tour of duty, he studied electrical engineering and the only weapons he handled were in target practice on the base.
The U.S. Army's investment in John Scott's education produced significant returns, in two main career fields that he served during his life. First, after returning to Sterling College to complete his degree--and marrying Virginia Lee Huffman of Pittsburg, Kansas, in 1948--John Scott continued at what was then known as the Pittsburg State Teachers College, where he finished a masters degree and all but the dissertation of a doctorate in educational administration. His masters thesis was on the teaching of math. During this time, John Scott served as a high school principal and superintendent in Whitewater, Kansas. He was in the news regularly for the projects he supported that helped students experience success and build confidence.
In the early 1950s, John Scott began to feel called to serve Kansas as a physician. His grandfather, Robert Scott, had been a medical doctor back in Ohio and his example left a lasting impression on John Scott's mind. At this point in his life, with a wife and two small children--Elizabeth Annand John Clark Jr.--he determined to change course and pursue a career in medicine. He first moved the family to Wichita, Kansas, where he built a small house for them to live in while he spent the next year taking pre-med classes at Wichita State University during the daytime and working at the Cessna plane factory at night. John Scott won an award as the best chemistry student at WSU that year. He also was successful in gaining admission to the University of Kansas School of Medicine, and the family lived the next four years in Kansas City--in 1958 he assisted in his first delivery, that of his third child, Robert Bruce.
Dr. John Clark Scott graduated in 1959 and then specialized in urology, a field of medicine that he saw a need for during his one-year internship with an established urologist. The family moved to Staten Island, New York, where Dr. Scott completed a residency in urology at the Public Health Service base. A fourth child, William Wallace, was born in Staten Island.
In 1964, the family moved to Norfolk, Virginia, where Dr. Scott served on the medical staff at the Public Health Service hospital and the Scott family lived in housing on the base for the next three years. The Scott children attended Norfolk Christian School during this time. In 1967, Dr. Scott completed his service obligations in the USPHS, and was free to set up private practice as a physician.
Ever since he had graduated from KU, Dr. Scott had received continual invitations from a core of KU grads at the Central Kansas Medical Center in Great Bend, Kansas, to come out and set up his private practice there. Until Dr. Scott's arrival in 1967, Great Bend area residents--and indeed large regions in central and western Kansas--had had to travel to Wichita for urology care.
His new office was immediately very busy and Dr. Scott built a reputation in the region as a competent and personable physician. Even today there are many who remember life-saving care he gave to their loved ones during the eight short years of his practice. Three Scott children--Elizabeth Ann ('68), John Clark ('70) and Robert Bruce ('76)--graduated from Great Bend Senior High School. William Wallace graduated from Lawrence Senior High in Lawrence, Kansas, in 1978, after he and his brothers had moved there.
John and Virginia celebrated their 25th wedding
anniversary on December 24, 1973, in the company of their
four children, John's mother Ella Rose Scott and
a number of invited guests who braved a harsh winter storm
to make it for the occasion.
The Scott family attended church every Sunday at the Sterling Reformed Presbyterian congregation in Sterling, Kansas, a one-hour drive each way, for morning and evening services. It was one of the great joys for Dr. and Mrs. Scott to rekindle their fellowship with the residents of this small town where they had attended college and fallen in love many years earlier. During the long drives across the beautiful central Kansas countryside, the Scotts would sing, listen to gospel music and enjoy the weekly Billy Graham broadcasts.
John Scott enjoyed good food and country music. When the family visited NYC, he went straight for the deli's. On a tour of Aosta, Italy, he took his children deep into the city, where they found a great pizza place and ate thinly layered pastries on their way back. John Scott always made sure to have a stereo around, even if it was a plastic model from Radio Shack, and he mostly liked listening to Hank Williams.During the Christmas holiday season of 1972, he got an Irishsetter puppy, which he named Rustic Hunter--or Rusty. Rusty accompanied the Scotts on Saturday morning "hunting" excursions, during which not a single animal was ever killed--but they came back every time with a big box of Daylight Doughnuts after shooting at cans and watching Rusty running wildly after nothing in particular.
On a sunny Kansas Saturday morning, October 4, 1975, Dr.John Clark Scott and his wife, Virginia Lee, were taken away from their children, their relatives and their friends whentheir Beechcraft Bonanza crashed on landing at Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport. They were stopping there to arrange for the arrival later that evening of Dr. Scott'smother, Ella Mae Scott (Rose), a resident of the Presbyterian Manor in Sterling. When she arrived that night, she was met by Robert Bruce, William Wallace and Howard and Betty Edgar, their cousins from Hutchinson, Kansas, where the Scott children and their grandmother gathered that weekend before returning to their homes. John Clark Scott Jr. and Linda Kenepaske, now his wife, arrived to Hutch early Sunday morning from Kansas City. Elizabeth Ann Scott's flight from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania arrived in the early afternoon at Wichita, where she was met by her brothers.
The funeral was held at the Reformed Presbyterian Churchin Sterling, Kansas, with Rev. Bruce Backensto and Rev.Luther McFarland presiding. Nearly 500 people filled the old RP church, many traveling long distances to be there.The Scotts are buried in the Sterling, Kansas, cemetery.Their gravestone was designed by their children, and includes Mrs. Scott's favorite Bible verse from the Book of Ruth.
Gifts in memory of Virginia and John enabled Sterling College to establish a scholarship fund, which awards promising Biology and English students each year.
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