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UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION then-Executive Director Theodore (Ted) Serrill, Claybaugh negotiated the purchase of Publisher's Auxiliary, a newspaper established in 1865 and devoted to reporting events of the journalistic profession. Learning the publication "might be available," the two successfully transacted in New York City with its owner, Farwell Perry of Western Newspaper Union, and acquired the paper for $45,000. Revitalized under NEA's direction, the publication's earnings retired the indebtedness within two years, Serrill remembered. Today, it's highly regarded as the voice of both NNA and the newspaper industry. His national association service also included a term as a director of Weekly Newspaper Representatives, the organization's advertising arm. In 1968, he became the first from his state to be singled out for the Amos Award, NNA's most prestigious honor to a male member, given in recognition of "distinguished service and substantial contributions to the press of the United States in general and programs of the national association in particular." During his years at the helm of the News and Journal, Clay held all the elective offices expected of a civic leader --president of the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club and chairman of the Bird Haven Boy Scout District. He was also an elder and the organist of Community Presbyterian Church. Aside from civic service, he was a member of the Utah Legislature; taught a course on weekly newspaper management in the University of Utah's journalism department; was an officer in the Headliner chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, the Salt Lake Advertising Club and Kappa Tau Alpha, a professional journalistic society. While president of the Chamber of Commerce, he was a prime mover in bringing to Brigham City a fledgling new chemical company known as Thiokol. It was a project on which he worked diligently and in pursuit of which he made many trips to the East Coast. Thiokol would become Utah's leading private employer. Upon retirement, he became Publisher Emeritus of the Brigham City newspapers, turning over active management to 464 |
