R. Clark McBride III's Obituary
R. Clark McBride III
1932-2025
With the passing of Clark McBride at San Ramon, California on August 19, 2025, California lost a strong contributor to the quality of civic life.
Clark was born in Berkeley, California, the first child of Reuben Clark McBride, Jr., a general contractor, and his wife Alice McBride, née Cannon. This was at the lowest point of the Great Depression. His delivering physician was even paid with firewood instead of money.
Early in Clark’s life, his family settled in San Francisco on Polk Street, where, exhibiting an entrepreneurial spirit, he worked as a paper boy for the San Francisco News, delivering a neighborhood route and then selling his spare papers on the street to passers-by. In 1946, his family moved to Walnut Creek. Earlier in the 1940s, they had raised chickens on a small ranch on Ygnacio Valley Road there, selling the chickens to motorists.
He graduated from Acalanes High School in Lafayette, California in 1950. There he lettered in football as a lineman and in baseball as an outfielder, worked as the sports editor of the Acalanes Blueprint, and was an enthusiastic member of the Rally Committee. During that same period, he was catcher for Walnut Creek’s American Legion baseball team.
One of Pappy’s Boys, Clark played football (lineman and linebacker) at the University of California, Berkeley for the junior varsity Ramblers, earning his Circle C. He achieved brief fame in the 1951 season when the Oakland Tribune and another paper carried stories of a game, never actually played, between the Ramblers and Moffett Field, crediting freshman “quarterback Clark McBride” with two touchdown passes on the way to a 34-7 victory; apparently, some of his fraternity brothers had fed the bogus account to the newspapers as a prank. Also at Cal, he was a member of Sigma Phi fraternity and Triune, the sophomore men’s society.
While serving as a judge in the Soph Doll competition, he met Carolyn King, one of the contestants. They would wed September 5, 1953 and enjoy a long and happy marriage of nearly 72 years. He was ever a devoted husband, his love for Carolyn apparent in so many of the things that he did for her and in the things that he said about her. In every respect, he set an example for his children of what a good husband should be.
He graduated in 1955 from Cal, receiving a bachelor of science degree in Business Administration with an emphasis in industrial relations, the field in which he would later find a career and success.
First, however, was the Marine Corps. He was in the Reserve Officers Training Corps at Berkeley and was commissioned a lieutenant of Marines upon graduation. Following officers’ basic school at Quantico, Virginia, he was based at Twenty-nine Palms, California. He would later serve in the Marine reserves into the early 1960s. While a midshipman at Berkeley, his 1954 summer cruise aboard the U.S.S. Holder took him to Havana, Cuba, after which he returned home to greet his first son, who had arrived during his time at sea.
Clark remained a lifelong supporter of University of California athletics, donating substantially to the renovation of Harmon Gymnasium, attending most home football games, and holding season tickets for both football and basketball for many years until his health no longer allowed him to attend games. Ever the sportsman, he was an avid golfer and a fan of the Bay Area professional sports teams from baseball’s San Francisco Seals onward.
He was a devoted and beloved father. He spent a great deal of time with his three children, creating wonderful memories. He was supportive of their interests, whether they be sports, dance, competitive speech, scouts, or anything else. He managed his son Brad’s youth baseball team in Sacramento in 1966.
Clark had stints with Shell Development, Ditto Corporation, and Herrick Iron Works before landing a position as assistant personnel manager with Campbell Soup Company in Sacramento in 1965. This was the beginning of a 30-year career that would take him to Camden, New Jersey and Modesto, California. He served as personnel manager at Campbell’s Swanson plant in Modesto from 1968 until his retirement in 1995, ultimately filling the same role concurrently for Campbell’s Sacramento soup plant.
He was involved in professional organizations, being elected president of the Southern Alameda County Personnel Managers Association in 1965 and, years later, in 1970-1971, president of the Personnel Management Council of Stanislaus County.
He always had a strong interest in the communities in which he lived. This could involve assisting with school hearing tests and advising a Hayward, California chapter of Junior Achievement in 1962. The “company” he advised was named one of the top “companies” in the west.
His contributions continued later in Modesto. As a leader in local industry, he promoted a curriculum for the county’s schools to encourage young people to become informed, responsible voters, even appearing on television in pursuit of this goal. With other community leaders, Clark spearheaded the development of guidelines and direction for what became Partners in Education, where businesses partnered with schools to help prepare students for adult life in the working world, a theme he had pursued years earlier with Modesto’s Youth Opportunity Council. He served prominently on the Business Advisory Council to help Stanislaus County implement a hazardous waste law and develop related regulations.
While in Modesto, he was a member of the Sportsmen of Stanislaus (“S.O.S.”) Club.
In retirement, he took up and avidly pursued photography as a hobby.
Clark is survived by Carolyn, his wife; his children Monroe McBride (Laurie) of Herriman, Utah, Bradley McBride (Mona) of Danville, California, and Victoria Blockhus (David) of Los Altos, California; by nine grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren; and by his brother Hugh McBride (Ellen) of Sonoma, California and his sister-in-law, Judy McBride of Grass Valley, California. He was preceded in death by his parents and his brother, Bruce McBride.
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