Clark Crouch was born in a farm house in rural Nebraska in 1928 and his life and attitudes were shaped by drought and The Great Depression. His interest in western and cowboy poetry is the result of a 1941
acquaintance with Badger Clark, then Poet Laureate of South Dakota, and hearing the poet personally read his poems.
That poetic interest has culminated in the publication of five books of poetry, the latest three of which are devoted solely to western and cowboy verse:
Most of his youth was spent in the ranch country in the Sandhills of Nebraska. He and his parents lived for a time on a ranch occupying a one room sod house which was about twenty feet square with
an earthen floor and a sod roof. Cheesecloth strung beneath the roof caught falling dirt and insects and sheets strung on wires provided partitions for two rudimentary bedrooms. The amenities were
strictly mid-19th Century.
He attended a succession of rural, one-room schools walking or riding his pony as much as five miles morning and evening. Employed as a ranch hand during the summers from the time he was twelve
until he was nearly eighteen, he worked his way through high school, supplementing his summer income by working at various times as a retail clerk, telephone operator, janitor, and truck driver.
He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps toward the end of World War II and in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean conflict. He was employed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and it's successor organizations for 32 years before retiring to become a strategic planning consultant in 1978. His planning resources are in use around the world.
He is married and has two adult children and three grandchildren.