Historic Englewood Florida
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Page 22 Historic Englewood Guide 2022 By ELAINE ALLEN-EMRICH STAFF WRITER Eugenie Clark turned a childhood fascination with fishes into a world-class career as an ichthyologist. Clark wrote three books and published more than 175 articles, including in National Geographic. Before she died in 2014 at age 92, Clark conducted 72 submersible dives, some as deep as 12,000 feet. She led more than 200 field research expeditions to the Mideast, Thailand, Mexico, Borneo, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Japan, Caribbean, Indonesia and the Solomon Islands. Nicknamed "The Shark Lady," Clark studied spotted oceanic triggerfish, sand fishes, whales and deep-sea sharks. And, in 1955, the 32-year-old Clark became the first and only director of the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory in Englewood. The facility would move to Sarasota five years later and become the world-famous Mote Marine Laboratory. On what would've been Clark's 100th birthday on May 4, 2022, the lab she founded along with her family and govern- ment officials unveiled a commemorative Forever Stamp in her honor. The U.S. Postal Service printed 18 mil- lion Eugenie Clark stamps to be sold around the country. "She (Clark) made marine science acces- sible to everyone," said Mote Marine CEO Michael Crosby on the occasion. "She's an inspiration of science and education and loved by all of her friends." The first draft of the stamp design didn't make the cut with her family. When the postal service showed them a draft featuring her with a great white shark, they knew it needed to be changed. "We asked that a lemon shark replace the great white," said Stephanie Weiss, who is married to Clark's only grandson, Eli. "We thought it was a better represen- tation of Granny Genie's image." Eli, 31, a pilot, explained when he was 5 years old, he became "Granny Genie's assistant." Instead of competing in BMX bike races, he went diving with granny. He took photos of whale sharks that were later published in National Geographic — just like his grandmother's works. She was featured on the cover of a magazine holding a shark. Eli said Clark wanted her ashes spread in the same coordinates as her good friend William Mote, who died at age 93. Mote was a supporter of Clark's work and her lab in Sarasota was renamed after his family in 1967. "We went out on the ship R/V Eugenie Clark into the Gulf of Mexico to scatter Granny Genie's ashes," Eli said. "My mom (Aya Konstantinou) jumped in the water. Then my uncle followed her. So I did too. We weren't supposed to, but we did. Someone took a photo of us in the water. We couldn't believe it. Postal Service stamp honors pioneering biologist Eugenie Clark PHOTO PROVIDED Eugenie Clark SUN FILE PHOTOS BY ELAINE ALLEN-EMRICH Aya Konstantinou, daughter of Eugenie Clark, speaks to the crowd about how her mom brought a shark to the Tokyo emperor as a gift. Also pictured is Konstan- tinou's brother, Tak, who spoke during a ceremony honoring their late mother at Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota. "We asked that a lemon shark replace the great white. We thought it was a better representation of Granny Genie's image." — Stephanie Weiss, wife of Eugenie Clark's grandson Eli Weiss.