BOSTON — Newtown Bee Editor Curtiss Clark became one of the newest members of the New England Newspaper Hall of Fame this year when he and five others were celebrated on February 19.

Friends, colleagues, and family members joined this year's inductees last Friday evening for the annual ceremony at Boston's Park Plaza Hotel. Mr Clark joined Tom Condon, Chazy Dowaliby, Stephen M. Mindich, Susan Ovans, and Walter V. Robinson in being congratulated by the New England Newspaper & Press Association (NENPA) for decades of exceptional service to the journalism community. Following introductory remarks by NENPA President Peter Haggerty, each person being honored was introduced and then presented with a crystal award.

Mr Clark was introduced by Sherri Smith Baggett. Mrs Baggett is the business manager for Bee Publishing Company. She represented her father, Bee Publisher and Executive Editor R. Scudder Smith, who was unable to attend the event.

Mrs Baggett's voice broke occasionally as she read her father's words, including one of his final points: "Employing Curtiss Clark turned out to be one of the best decisions ever made at The Bee Publishing Company."

Mr Clark began his tenure at The Bee in June 1973. Over the years, Mrs Baggett read, "he performed almost every task necessary to publish a newspaper including editing, covering town meetings, photography, and layout. And during those early years he would join other staff members in the pressroom, stuffing papers into brown postal bags and loading them into trucks."

For a number of years Mr Clark also managed The Bee's satellite office in Woodbury, when the paper added The Weekly Star to its publications. Mr Clark was editor of The Star for a decade until that paper was sold by Bee Publishing Company. He served simultaneously as managing editor of The Newtown Bee during that period of the 1980s and 90s.

He was promoted to editor of The Newtown Bee in July 2007. It was the first time in the history of the family-owned company that someone other than a member of the Smith family held that post.

"He has succeeded in keeping watch over the growth and direction of Newtown, expressing our opinions via Editorial Ink Drops," Mrs Baggett read. In accepting his award, Mr Clark said called the induction a wonderful honor.

"I am surprised and flattered," he said.

In his brief acceptance speech, Mr Clark said that his 40-plus years of working at a small independently owned weekly newspaper never led him to think about being famous.

"But I happened to be the editor of the local weekly newspaper for a community - Newtown, Connecticut - whose name has become now, sadly, closely associated with infamy. In those dark, chaotic, confusing days after the killing of so many innocents at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we paused at the newspaper, often, to ask ourselves what our mission was, especially in the swirl of media coverage that took the story in so many sensational directions, and we quickly came back to the same answer each time we asked that question.

"Our mission ended up being what it had been for the 135-year history of The Newtown Bee prior to that fateful day of December 14, 2012, and that mission was: Serve your community," he continued. "It's amazing how many questions that directive answers. It gave us a lot of inspiration, and direction, for our coverage."

The community of Newtown, Mr Clark told the approximately 100 guests, is now becoming famous for its compassion, resilience, and the determination of its people "not to have the worst day in its history become its defining moment."

Opportunities for excellence, he said, do not exist only "down some long career path or in some other celebrated place, but right where you are, right here, right now, even in the smallest newsrooms."

Mr Clark thanked his staff, and those in the ballroom with him, "for seizing opportunities of excellence in your newsrooms throughout New England."

Nominations for the New England Hall of Fame are done by colleagues, who are encouraged by NENPA to highlight people who "have made extraordinary contributions to their newspaper (s), the newspaper industry and their communities."

As part of her nomination, Mrs Baggett called Mr Clark "an integral part of all of our operations" and "an asset and value †to our newspaper."

"Curtiss has given The Newtown Bee over 42 years of his life," she wrote to the nomination committee. "The culmination of his work ethic and eloquent writings for The Newtown Bee have set a standard for the company that is appreciated, not only by the company's staff, but our readership. His weekly editorials speak of town government, local and state politics, global issues, education, tragedy, love†just to name a few.

"His writings and editorials," she added, "have made a difference of how our newspaper is viewed by our neighbors and townspeople of Newtown; positive or negative. He claims the attention of his audience, which to me is extraordinary in itself."

Mr Clark plans to retire from The Bee Publishing Company in May.

With its six newest honorees, NENPA's Hall Of Fame now includes 110 members. The addition of Mr Clark last weekend marked the third time an editor from The Bee Publishing Company has been so honored.

Paul Smith was honored posthumously in 2000, the first year the newspaper association (then called NEPA) celebrated its "industry heroes." R. Scudder Smith, Paul's son and the newspaper's current publisher, was an honoree the following year.