Old Missoula

 

Spirit of Star Athlete Will Win Out Anywhere

 

Clinton Hester, Former Graduate, Is Example

 

Does the star athlete make good in the game of life? Mr. Ketcham says yes, “It takes courage and fighting spirit, grit and the will to do or die to make an athlete,” he said, “and the boys with these qualities can’t help but succeed in any undertaking.” To lend strength to this statement comes a letter from Clinton M. Hester, who attended M. H. S. from 1912 to 1915 and who was captain of both the football and the basketball teams of 1914.

 

Alone and without aid, Hester’s high school life was one long struggle against discouragement. One winter he slept in the old gym which was unheated and without even the crudest of comforts. He earned a few cents to buy food by mopping out saloons downtown, kept up his studies, and was a star athlete.

 

After three years he determined to go to Phillips-Exeter, a private school in New Hampshire. Here Mr. Ketcham took a hand and helped him. Clinton was an unusual boy and a true westerner. He worked his way, finished Phillips-Exeter in 1917, just after war was declared, and went to work in the ship yards. He was married during his employment there and soon afterward sailed for France.

 

When he returned to America he continued his studies at Georgetown University, Washington, D. C., from which he was graduated in June, 1922 with an L. L. B. degree, one of the three honor students out of a class of three hundred. He passed the Bar examination in the District of Columbia with the highest grades ever given in the history of that Bar. He continued his course at George Washington University from which he was graduated with an A. B. degree, January, 1923.

 

As a result of Hester’s excellent record and also because he had specialized in admiralty law, – litigation arising out of the operation of shipping board vessels, he received an appointment as attorney on the Admiralty staff of the United States shipping board emergency fleet corporation at a salary of $3,000, which has lately been raised to $4,000. This staff handles all problems of maritime supervision.

 

Hester has tried some interesting cases lately in Boston, in the United States district court of the eastern district of Pennsylvania, and at Baltimore in the district court of Maryland. One was a case against a privately owned vessel of King George V on the conduct of which he was highly complimented by a Federal judge.

 

Hester in a letter to Mr. Ketcham, says:

 

“I am very proud of the growth and success of my old school. This great growth is due entirely to your leadership which has influenced, not only the growth of the old school, but the success of Missoula boys after they have passed down the corridors of the M. H. S. for the last time. Advice you gave me long ago is still ringing in my ears; and, whenever I come to that road of doubt, I call upon my memory. The response is immediate and before I realize it, I find you guiding me still as of yore.

 

“Hope Missoula wins the tournament. Wish I were there to root for them.”

 

 

 

The above article appeared in the Missoula school newspaper, The Konah, March 23, 1923.

 

As a side bit for Missoula history it’s interesting to note the staff who worked on the paper for that period:

 

Editorial Staff

 

Editor-in-Chief – Richard Davis

 

Associate Editor – Jack Wrabek

 

Calendar – Helen J. Hodges

 

Office – Walter Pritchett

 

Feature Editor – Harlan King

 

Sports Editor – Bill Kelly

 

Personals – Margorie Smith

 

Society – Astrid Arnoldson

 

Students Ass’n – Thelma Andrews

 

Girls’ Club – Fairlee Murchison

 

Dramatics – Gladys M. Wheatley

 

Spanish Club – Ailene Blumenthal

 

Radio – Jack Wheatley

 

Classes – Hilmer Johnson

 

Assembly – Grace I. Roberts

 

Exchanges – Arthur Peat

 

Business Staff

 

Business Manager – Norvald Ulvestad

 

Circulation – Kenneth Davis

 

Sponsor – Margaret Ronan

 

 

 

 

Clinton Hester served in several government positions throughout his career, including his appointment as the first administrator of the CAA in 1938.

 

In an oral interview discussing his own career at the Treasury Department, Bernard Bernstein said this about Hester: “Another Treasury Assistant General Counsel was Clinton Hester, a man of outstanding capacity to understand and work with the members of Congress and further the Treasury programs on the Hill.”[1]

 

Congressman John D. Dingell, a friend of Hester’s inserted the following tribute to him in the Congressional Record on July 15, 1969:[2]

 

 

Mr. Dingell, Mr. Speaker, I insert into the RECORD an article about a distinguished American and a friend of my family since my boyhood, Mr. Clinton M. Hester, an outstanding member of the bar for over 50 years, has had a long and outstanding career in public service, culminating in his position as chairman of the executive committee of the James Madison Memorial Commission.

 

The article from the Phillips Exeter Academy Bulletin follows:

 

Clinton M. Hester

 

When Clinton M. Hester arrived at Exeter from Missoula, Mont., in September 1915 with $25.00 in his pocket, he was carrying a letter from Assistant Principal Robinson, stating that inasmuch as Clint’s parents were deceased, and seemingly no extra monies were available, it would be impossible for him to work his way through Exeter. The Assistant Principal was so amazed and startled at Clinton’s determination, as well as the distance he had traveled from home, that he allowed him to enter the Academy. Once at Exeter Clint never lacked for sufficient employment to enable him to stay there.

 

The impetus of his Exeter education, together with Army service overseas in 1917, prompted him to go to night school, obtaining an A. B. from George Washington Univ. and an L.L.B. from Georgetown, paying for his tuition and living expenses by working as a structural iron worker during the day. After a few years in private practice, he worked for sixteen years in various departments of the Federal Government. President Roosevelt appointed him as administrator of the Civil Aeronautics Authority, now the F.A.A., and he became a member of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, now renamed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. While Administrator of the C.A.A., Clint made the pioneering survey flights for passenger service across the South Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans in the original Boeing Clippers, and he was responsible for the supervision and the building of the Washington National Airport. Clint believes that his appointment from President Roosevelt was the result of his assignment to draft the original bill for the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938.

 

On the basis of his administrative experience and his fine liaison with congressional members, President Eisenhower appointed him chairman of the executive committee of the James Madison Memorial Commission. After four years of persuasion and lobbying, Congress enacted the resolution in 1967 authorizing $75,000,000 for the Madison Memorial Library.

 

Clint’s dedicated services to the government and to our nation have been particularly effective and we congratulate him on behalf of our Class for a splendid career and for his accomplishments. He has now settled down to a private law practice, one of his clients being the National Football League. When he can get away from Washington, he goes to his extensive farm in Hot Springs, Va., where he has re-created a bit of Western living, hunting deer and bear, and trout fishing in delightful mountain streams.

 

 

Clinton Hester died in Washington, D. C., in July of 1971 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ID: I0730
Name: Clinton Monroe Hester
Sex: M
Birth: 16 APR 1895 in Des Moines, Iowa
Death: 18 JUL 1971 in Washington, D.C.
Burial: National Cemetery, Arlington Virginia
Reference Number: 716

Father: John Kenton Hester , Jr. b: 29 OCT 1865 in Mt. Olivet, Kentucky
Mother: Sarah Hannah Hamilton b: 3 NOV 1869 in Lexington Kentucky

Marriage 1 Elizabeth Murvin
Married: 3 MAY 1924
Children
Jean Hamilton Hester b: 16 MAR 1927

Marriage 2 Margaret Lee Bixby b: AFT. 1916
Married: 30 JUL 1965