Clark DeLeon
Contributor
BSR Contributor Since March 23, 2013
Longtime Philadelphia journalist Clark DeLeon writes the "Clark's Park" column for the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. He lives in West Philadelphia.
Clark DeLeon was born in the hospital founded by Benjamin Franklin and he studied journalism at the university founded by Russell Conwell.
During his senior year at Temple, DeLeon won a national collegiate writing award for a column he wrote in the Temple News about assisting his wife, Sara, in the the birth of their son, Daniel. The award money paid for his last semester's tuition. As DeLeon joked, “My son worked his father's way through college.†Hired by the Philadelphia Inquirer in May 1972, within two years DeLeon was writing a daily column, The Scene, which appeared five or six times a week for the next 20 years. In that column, he celebrated his love affair with the city of his birth and made such an intimate connection with readers that Philadelphia Magazine dubbed him “Philadelphia's favorite columnist.†Both during and after his Inquirer days, DeLeon appeared regularly on KYW-TV and NBC-10 news as a reporter/commentator. He hosted a daily talk show on WCAU-AM immediately before former Mayor Frank Rizzo's show. In jest DeLeon called his own show Good Cop, Bad Cop. In addition, he wrote a column for AOL called Digital DeLeon, and between 2000 and 2010, wrote a weekly column in Metro. He is the author of four books.
DeLeon now teaches English and journalism at Montgomery County Community College. In May 2012 he rejoined the Inquirer as a Sunday columnist in the Currents section. The column is called "Clark's Park," not to be confused with Clark Park in West Philadelphia, where, for 27 years, he and his wife and have lived and raised their three children. Their two grandchildren love the park.
During his senior year at Temple, DeLeon won a national collegiate writing award for a column he wrote in the Temple News about assisting his wife, Sara, in the the birth of their son, Daniel. The award money paid for his last semester's tuition. As DeLeon joked, “My son worked his father's way through college.†Hired by the Philadelphia Inquirer in May 1972, within two years DeLeon was writing a daily column, The Scene, which appeared five or six times a week for the next 20 years. In that column, he celebrated his love affair with the city of his birth and made such an intimate connection with readers that Philadelphia Magazine dubbed him “Philadelphia's favorite columnist.†Both during and after his Inquirer days, DeLeon appeared regularly on KYW-TV and NBC-10 news as a reporter/commentator. He hosted a daily talk show on WCAU-AM immediately before former Mayor Frank Rizzo's show. In jest DeLeon called his own show Good Cop, Bad Cop. In addition, he wrote a column for AOL called Digital DeLeon, and between 2000 and 2010, wrote a weekly column in Metro. He is the author of four books.
DeLeon now teaches English and journalism at Montgomery County Community College. In May 2012 he rejoined the Inquirer as a Sunday columnist in the Currents section. The column is called "Clark's Park," not to be confused with Clark Park in West Philadelphia, where, for 27 years, he and his wife and have lived and raised their three children. Their two grandchildren love the park.
