Texas State faculty awarded Bess Whitehead Scott Fund

Elizabeth Černota Clark, Senior Lecturer of Journalism and Mass Communication at Texas State University, has been awarded the Bess Whitehead Scott Fund. 

The Bess Whitehead Scott Fund awards $2,000 to Clark, who plans to use the fund to continue research for a book about Lidice, a Czechoslovakian town that was destroyed by the Gestapo during World War II. Clark traveled to the Czech Republic over the summer, where she conducted interviews with people in the city of Kladno, the city where women and children of Lidice were kept by the Gestapo. 

Clark is of Moravian and Bohemian (Czech) heritage as well as being an active member of the American Sokol Organization. 

“Having heard the story of Lidice since childhood, I’m using my writing and photography to continue spreading the message of hope and resilience that Lidice represents,” Clark said. “This trip enabled me to resume interviews I began in 2018 with Lidice’s ‘child survivors’- now in their 70s and 80s- who will figure into a book about the Lidice tragedy as seen through the eyes of its children.”

Before spending the last 11 years as a lecturer at Texas State, Clark had a successful 40 year career in journalism. She began her career as an editorial assistant at the Chicago Daily News. She later worked for the Denton Record-Chronicle as a feature editor. While in Denton, she also earned a master's degree from the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas.

The Bess Whitehead Scott was a trailblazing journalist in the early 20th century. She shattered the glass ceiling for women reporters everywhere. Spending most of her career at the Houston Post, she wore many different hats: reporter, teacher, publicist, and mentor. This Fund was set up in Scott’s honor supporting writers and journalists for 29 years and counting.